Colaptes auratus.
1341 ♂
There are four well-marked representatives of the typical genus Colaptes belonging to Middle and North America, three of them found within the limits of the United States, in addition to what has been called a hybrid between two of them. The common and distinctive characters of these four are as follows:—
Species and Varieties.
Common Characters. Head and neck ashy or brown, unvaried except by a black or red malar patch in the male. Back and wings brown, banded transversely with black; rump and upper tail-coverts white. Beneath whitish, with circular black spots, and bands on crissum; a black pectoral crescent. Shafts and under surfaces of quills and tail-feathers either yellow or red.
A. Mustache red; throat ash; no red nuchal crescent.
a. Under surface and shafts of wings and tail red.
1. C. mexicanoides.[133] Hood bright cinnamon-rufous; feathers of mustache black below surface. Upper parts barred with black and whitish-brown, the two colors of about equal width. Shafts, etc., dull brick-red. Rump spotted with black; black terminal zone of under surface of tail narrow, badly defined. Wing, 6.15; tail, 4.90; bill, 1.77. Hab. Southern Mexico and Guatemala.
2. C. mexicanus.[134] Hood ashy-olivaceous, more rufescent anteriorly, light cinnamon on lores and around eyes; feathers of mustache light ash below surface. Upper parts umber-brown, barred with black, the black only about one fourth as wide as the brown. Shafts, etc., fine salmon-red, or pinkish orange-red. Rump unspotted; black terminal