Mr. Ridgway saw a single individual of this species in the outskirts of Salt Lake City, in July, 1869.
Their eggs vary both in size and in shape, from a spherical to an oblong-oval, the latter being the more usual. Their length varies from 1.10 to 1.15 inches, and their breadth from .80 to .90 of an inch.
Melanerpes formicivorus, var. formicivorus, Bonap
CALIFORNIA WOODPECKER
Picus formicivorus, Swainson, Birds Mex. in Philos. Mag. I, 1827, 439 (Mexico).—Vigors, Zoöl. Blossom, 1839, 23 (Monterey).—Nuttall, Man. I, 2d ed. 1840. Melanerpes formicivorus, Bp. Conspectus, 1850, 115.—Heermann, J. A. N. Sc. Phil. 2d series, II, 1853, 270.—Cassin, Illust. II, 1853, 11, pl. ii.—Newberry, Zoöl. Cal. & Oregon Route, 90, P. R. R. Surv. VI, 1857.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1868, 114.—Sumichrast, Mem. Bost. Soc. I, 1865, 562 (correcting an error of Saussure).—Cassin, Pr. A. N. S. 63, 328.—Heermann, P. R. R. X, 58 (nesting).—Baird, Rep. M. Bound. II, Birds, 6.—Sclater, Pr. Z. S. 1858, 305 (Oaxaca).—Ib. Ibis, 137 (Honduras).—Cab. Jour. 1862, 322 (Costa Rica).—Coues, Pr. A. N. S. 1866, 55.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. I, 1870, 403. Picus melanopogon, Temminck, Pl. Color. IV, (1829? pl. ccccli.—Wagler, Isis, 1829, v, 515.—Sundevall, Consp. 51.
Melanerpes formicivorus.
Sp. Char. Fourth quill longest, third a little shorter. Above and on the anterior half of the body, glossy bluish or greenish black; the top of the head and a short occipital crest red. A white patch on the forehead, connecting with a broad crescentic collar on the upper part of the neck by a narrow isthmus, white tinged with sulphur-yellow. Belly, rump, bases of primaries, and inner edges of the outer quills, white. Tail-feathers uniform black. Female with the red confined to the occipital crest, the rest replaced by greenish-black; the three patches white, black, and red, very sharply defined, and about equal. Length about 9.50; wing, 6.00; tail, 3.75.
Hab. Pacific Coast region of the United States and south; in Northern Mexico, eastward almost to the Gulf of Mexico; also on the Upper Rio Grande; south to Costa Rica. Localities: Oaxaca (Scl. P. Z. S. 1858, 305); Cordova (Scl. 1856, 307); Guatemala (Scl. Ibis, I, 137); Honduras (Scl. Cat. 341); Costa Rica (Cab. J. 1862, 322); W. Arizona (Coues, P. A. N. S. 1866, 55).
In most specimens one or two red feathers may be detected in the black of the breast just behind the sulphur-yellow crescent. The white of the breast is streaked with black; the posterior portion of the black of the breast and anterior belly streaked with white. The white of the wing only shows externally as a patch at the base of the primaries.
PLATE LIII.
1. Melanerpes formicivorus. ♂ Cal., 5495.
2. Melanerpes formicivorus. ♀ Cal., 25035.
3. Melanerpes angustifrons. ♂ Cape St. Lucas, 25947.
4. Melanerpes angustifrons. ♀ Cape St. Lucas, 25949.
Dr. Coues calls attention to extraordinary differences in the color of the iris, which varies from white to red, blue, yellow, ochraceous, or brown. A mixture of blue, he thinks, indicates immaturity, and a reddish tinge the full spring coloration.
The male of this species has a white forehead extending a little backwards of the anterior edge of the eye, the rest of the top of head to the nape being red. The female has the white forehead, and a quadrate occipito-nuchal red patch, a black band about as broad as the white one separating the latter from the occipital red. The length of the two anterior bands together is decidedly greater than that of the posterior red. In both sexes the jugulum is entirely and continuously black. Anteriorly (generally with a red spot in its anterior edge) and on the feathers of its posterior border only are these elongated white spots, on each side the shaft, the feathers of the breast being streaked centrally with black. The inner webs of the secondaries have an elongated continuous patch of white along their internal edge, with a very slight, almost inappreciable, border of black; this white only very rarely converted partly or entirely into quadrate spots, and that never on the innermost quills marked with white. Specimens from California are very similar to those from the Rocky Mountains and the Rio Grande Valley, except, perhaps, in being larger, with longer and straighter bill.
In M. flavigula from Bogota, the male has the head marked with the red, black, and white (the red much less in extent, however) of the female M. formicivorus, while the female has no red whatever. All, or nearly all, the feathers of the jugulum have the two white spots, and (as pointed out by Reichenbach) the white of the inner webs of the inner quills is entirely converted into a series of non-confluent quadrate spots. The black streaks on the sides and behind appear to be of greater magnitude, and more uniformly distributed. In both species all the tail-feathers are perfectly black.
A Guatemalan bird, received from Mr. Salvin as M. formicivorus,—and indeed all specimens from Orizaba and Mirador to Costa Rica,—agrees in the main with the northern bird, except that all the black feathers of the jugulum have white spots, as in M. flavigula. The outermost tail-feather of Mr. Salvin’s specimen has two narrow transverse whitish bands, and a spot indicating a third, as well as a light tip. The white markings on the inner quills are more like the northern bird, though on the outermost ones there is the same tendency to form spots as in a few northern specimens (as 6,149 from Los Nogales, &c.). The bill is very different from either in being shorter, broader, much stouter, and the culmen more decurved.
These peculiarities, which are constant, appear to indicate a decided or strongly marked variety, as a series of almost a hundred specimens of the northern bird from many localities exhibit none of the characters mentioned, while all of an equally large series from Central America agree in possessing them.
A series of Jalapan specimens from the cabinet of Mr. Lawrence show a close relationship to skins from the Rio Grande, and do not approach the Guatemalan bird in the peculiar characters just referred to, except in the shortness and curvature of the bill. In one specimen there is an approach to the Bogotan in a moderate degree of barring on the white inner edgings of the tertials; in the rest, however, they are continuously white.
Habits. This handsome Woodpecker, distinguished both by the remarkable beauty of its plumage and the peculiarity of its provident habits, has a widely extended area of distribution, covering the Pacific Coast, from Oregon throughout Mexico. In Central America it is replaced by the variety striatipectus, and in New Grenada by the var. flavigula, while at Cape St. Lucas we find another local form, M. angustifrons. So far as we have the means of ascertaining their habits, we find no mention of any essential differences in this respect among these races.
Suckley and Cooper did not meet with this bird in Washington Territory, and Mr. Lord met with it in abundance on his journey from Yreka to the boundary line of British Columbia. Mr. Dresser did not observe it at San Antonio. Mr. Clark met with it at the Coppermines, in New Mexico, in great numbers, and feeding principally among the oaks. Lieutenant Couch found it in the recesses of the Sierra Madre quite common and very tame, resorting to high trees in search of its food. He did not meet with it east of the Sierra Madre. Dr. Kennerly first observed it in the vicinity of Santa Cruz, where it was very frequent on the mountain-slopes, always preferring the tallest trees, but very shy, and it was with difficulty that a specimen could be procured. Mr. Nuttall, who first added this bird to our fauna, speaks of it as very plentiful in the forests around Santa Barbara. Between that region and the Pueblo de los Angeles, Dr. Gambel met with it in great abundance, although neither writer makes mention of any peculiarities of habit. Mr. Emanuel Samuels met with it in and around Petaluma, where he obtained the eggs.
Dr. Newberry, in his Report on the zoölogy of Lieutenant Williamson’s route (P. R. R. Reports, VI), states that the range of this species extends to the Columbia, and perhaps above, to the westward of the Cascade Range, though more common in California than in Oregon. It was not found in the Des Chutes Basin, nor in the Cascade Mountains.
In the list of the birds of Guatemala given by Mr. Salvin in the Ibis, this Woodpecker is mentioned (I, p. 137) as being found in the Central Region, at Calderas, on the Volcan de Fuego, in forests of evergreen oaks, where it feeds on acorns.
Dr. Heermann describes it as among the noisiest as well as the most abundant of the Woodpeckers of California. He speaks of it as catching insects on the wing, after the manner of a Flycatcher, and mentions its very extraordinary habit of digging small holes in the bark of the pine and the oak, in which it stores acorns for its food in winter. He adds that one of these acorns is placed in each hole, and is so tightly fitted or driven in that it is with difficulty extracted. Thus, the bark of a large pine forty or fifty feet high will present the appearance of being closely studded with brass nails, the heads only being visible. These acorns are thus stored in large quantities, and serve not only the Woodpecker, but trespassers as well. Dr. Heermann speaks of the nest as being excavated in the body of the tree to a depth varying from six inches to two feet, the eggs being four or five in number, and pure white.
These very remarkable and, for a Woodpecker, somewhat anomalous habits, first mentioned among American writers by Dr. Heermann, have given rise to various conflicting statements and theories in regard to the design of these collections of acorns. Some have even ventured to discredit the facts, but these are too well authenticated to be questioned. Too many naturalists whose accuracy cannot be doubted have been eyewitnesses to these performances. Among these is Mr. J. K. Lord, who, however, was constrained to confess his utter inability to explain why the birds did so. He was never able to find an acorn that seemed to have been eaten, nor a trace of vegetable matter in their stomachs, and at the close of his investigations he frankly admitted this storing of acorns to be a mystery for which he could offer no satisfactory explanation.
M. H. de Saussure, the Swiss naturalist, in an interesting paper published in 1858 in the Bibliothèque Universelle of Geneva, furnishes some very interesting observations on the habits of a Woodpecker, which he supposed to be the Colaptes mexicanoides of Mexico, of storing collections of acorns in the hollow stems of the maguay plants. Sumichrast, who accompanied Saussure in his excursion, while recognizing the entire truth of the interesting facts he narrates, is confident that the credit of all this instinctive forethought belongs not to the Colaptes, but to the Mexican race of this species. Saussure’s article being too long to quote in full, we give an abstract.
The slopes of a volcanic mountain, Pizarro, near Perote, in Mexico, are covered with immense beds of the maguay (Agave americana), with larger growths of yuccas, but without any other large shrubs or trees. Saussure was surprised to find this silent and dismal wilderness swarming with Woodpeckers. A circumstance so unusual as this large congregation of birds, by nature so solitary, in a spot so unattractive, prompted him to investigate the mystery. The birds were seen to fly first to the stalks of the maguay, to attack them with their beaks, and then to pass to the yuccas, and there repeat their labors. These stalks, upon examination, were all found to be riddled with holes, placed irregularly one above another, and communicating with the hollow cavity within. On cutting open one of these stalks, he found it filled with acorns.
As is well known, this plant, after flowering, dies, its stalk remains, its outer covering hardens into a flinty texture, and its centre becomes hollow. This convenient cavity is used by the Woodpecker as a storehouse for provisions that are unusual food for the tribe. The central cavity of the stalk is only large enough to receive one acorn at a time. They are packed in, one above the other, until the cavity is full. How did these Woodpeckers first learn to thus use these storehouses, by nature closed against them? The intelligent instinct that enabled this bird to solve this problem Saussure regarded as not the least surprising feature. With its beak it pierces a small round hole through the lower portion into the central cavity, and thrusts in acorns until the hollow is filled to the level of the hole. It then makes a second opening higher up, and fills the space below in a like manner, and so proceeds until the entire stalk is full. Sometimes the space is too small to receive the acorns, and they have to be forced in by blows from its beak. In other stalks there are no cavities, and then the Woodpecker creates one for each acorn, forcing it into the centre of the pith.
The labor necessary to enable the bird to accomplish all this is very considerable, and great industry is required to collect its stores; but, once collected, the storehouse is a very safe and convenient one. Mount Pizarro is in the midst of a barren desert of sand and volcanic débris. There are no oak-trees nearer than the Cordilleras, thirty miles distant, and therefore the collecting and storing of each acorn required a flight of sixty miles.
This, reasons Saussure, is obviously an instinctive preparation, on the part of these birds, to provide the means of supporting life during the arid winter months, when no rain falls and everything is parched. His observations were made in April, the last of the winter months; and he found the Woodpeckers withdrawing food from their depositories, and satisfied himself that the birds were eating the acorn itself, and not the diminutive maggots a few of them contained.
The ingenuity with which the bird managed to get at the contents of each acorn was also quite striking. Its feet being unfit for grasping the acorn, it digs a hole into the dry bark of the yuccas, just large enough to receive the small end of the acorn, which it inserts, making use of its bill to split it open, as with a wedge. The trunks of the yuccas were all found riddled with these holes.
There are several remarkable features to be noticed in the facts observed by Saussure,—the provident instinct which prompts this bird to lay by stores of provisions for the winter; the great distance traversed to collect a kind of food so unusual for its race; and its seeking, in a spot so remote from its natural abode, a storehouse so remarkable. Can instinct alone teach, or have experience and reason taught, these birds, that, better far than the bark of trees, or cracks in rocks, or cavities dug in the earth, or any other known hiding-place, are these hidden cavities within the hollow stems of distant plants? What first taught them how to break through the flinty coverings of these retreats? By what revelation could these birds have been informed that within these dry and closed stalks they could, by searching, find suitable places, protected from moisture, for preserving their stores in a state most favorable for their long preservation, safe from gnawing rats, and from those acorn-eating birds whose bills are not strong or sharp enough to cut through their tough enclosures? M. Sumichrast, who afterwards enjoyed unusual opportunities for observing the habits of these Woodpeckers in the State of Vera Cruz, states that they dwell exclusively in oak woods, and that near Potrero, as well as in the alpine regions, trunks of oak-trees are found pierced with small holes in circular lines around their circumference. Into each of these holes these birds drive the acorns by repeated blows of their beaks, so as to fix them firmly. At other times they make their collection of acorns in openings between the raised bark of dry trees and the trunks. This writer states that he has sought in vain to explain such performances satisfactorily. The localities in which these birds reside, in Mexico, teem at all seasons with insects; and it seems absurd, therefore, to suppose that they can be in quest of the small, almost microscopic, larvæ contained in the acorns.
Dr. C. T. Jackson sought to account for these interesting performances on the ingenious hypothesis that the acorns thus stored are always infested with larvæ, and never sound ones; that they are driven into the tree cup-end foremost, so as to securely imprison the maggot and prevent its escape, and thus enable the Woodpecker to devour it at its leisure. This would argue a wonderful degree of intelligence and forethought, on the part of the Woodpecker, and more than it is entitled to; for the facts do not sustain this hypothesis. The acorns are not put into the tree with the cup-end in, but invariably the reverse, so far as we have noticed; and the acorns, so far from being wormy, are, in nine cases out of ten, sound ones. Besides, this theory affords no explanation of the large collections of loose acorns made by these birds in hollow trees, or in the stalks of the maguay plants. Nor can we understand why, if so intelligent, they make so little use of these acorns, as seems to be the almost universal testimony of California naturalists. And, as still further demonstrating the incorrectness of this hypothesis, we have recently been informed by Dr. Canfield of Monterey, Cal., that occasionally these Woodpeckers, following an instinct so blind that they do not distinguish between an acorn and a pebble, are known to fill up the holes they have drilled with so much labor, not only with acorns, but occasionally with stones. In time the bark and the wood grow over these, and after a few years they are left a long way from the surface. These trees are usually the sugar-pine of California, a wood much used for lumber. Occasionally one of these trees is cut, the log taken to mill without its being known that it is thus charged with rounded pieces of flint or agate, and the saws that come in contact with them are broken.
Without venturing to present an explanation of facts that have appeared so contradictory and unsatisfactory to other naturalists, such as we can claim to be either comprehensive or entirely satisfactory, we cannot discredit the positive averments of such observers as Saussure and Salvin. We believe that these Woodpeckers do eat the acorns, when they can do no better. And when we are confronted with the fact, which we do not feel at liberty to altogether disregard, that in very large regions this bird seems to labor in vain, and makes no use of the treasures it has thus heaped together, we can only attempt an explanation. This Woodpecker is found over an immense area. It everywhere has the same instinctive promptings to provide, not “for a rainy day,” but for the exact opposite,—for a long interval during which no rain falls, for nearly two hundred days at a time, in all the low and hot lands of Mexico and Central America. There these accumulations become a necessity, there we are informed they do eat the acorns, and, more than this, many other birds and beasts derive the means of self-preservation in times of famine from the provident labors of this bird. That in Oregon, in California, and in the mountains of Mexico and elsewhere, where better and more natural food offers throughout the year, it is rarely known to eat the acorns it has thus labored to save, only seems to prove that it acts under the influences of an undiscriminating instinct that prompts it to gather in its stores whether it needs them or not.
It may be, too, that writers have too hastily inferred that these birds never eat the acorns, because they have been unable to obtain complete evidence of the fact. We have recently received from C. W. Plass, Esq., some interesting facts, which, if they do not prove that these birds in the winter visit their stores and eat their acorns, render it highly probable. Mr. Plass resides near Napa City, Cal., near which city, and on the edge of the pine forests, he has recently constructed a house. The gable-ends of this dwelling the California Woodpeckers have found a very convenient storehouse for their acorns, and Mr. Plass has very considerately permitted them to do so unmolested. The window in the gable slides up upon pullies its whole length, to admit of a passage to the upper verandah, and the open space in the wall admits of the nuts falling down into the upper hall, and this frequently happens when the birds attempt to extricate them from the outside. Nearly all these nuts are found to be sound, and contain no worm, while those that fall outside are empty shells. Empty shells have also been noticed by Mr. Plass under the trees, indicating that the acorns have been eaten.
The Smithsonian Institution has received specimens of the American race of this Woodpecker, collected at Belize by Dr. Berendt, and accompanied by illustrations of their work in the way of implantation of acorns in the bark of trees.
The eggs of this Woodpecker, obtained by Mr. Emanuel Samuels near Petaluma, Cal., and now in the collection of the Boston Society of Natural History, are undistinguishable from the eggs of other Woodpeckers in form or color, except that they are somewhat oblong, and measure 1.12 inches in length by .90 of an inch in breadth.
Melanerpes formicivorus, var. angustifrons, Baird
THE NARROW-FRONTED WOODPECKER
Melanerpes formicivorus, var. angustifrons, Baird, Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 405.
Sp. Char. Compared with M. formicivorus, the size is smaller. The light frontal bar is much narrower; in the female scarcely more than half the black one behind it, and not reaching anything like as far back as the anterior border of the eye, instead of exceeding this limit. The light frontal and the black bars together are only about two thirds the length of the occipital red, instead of exceeding it in length; the red patch reaches forward nearly or quite to the posterior border of the eye, instead of falling a considerable distance behind it, and being much broader posteriorly. The frontal band too is gamboge-yellow, much like the throat, and not white; the connection with the yellow throat-patch much broader. The white upper tail-coverts show a tendency to a black edge. Length, 8.00; wing, 5.20; tail, 3.20.
Hab. Cape St. Lucas.
As the differences mentioned are constant, we consider the Cape St. Lucas bird as forming at least a permanent variety, and indicate it as above. A single specimen from the Sierra Madre, of Colima, is very similar.
Habits. We have no information as to the habits of this singular race of the M. formicivorus, found at Cape St. Lucas by Mr. John Xantus. It will be an interesting matter for investigation to ascertain to what extent the totally different character of the region in which this bird is met with from those in which the M. formicivorus is found, may have modified its habits and its manner of life.
Section COLAPTEÆ
This section, formerly embracing but one genus additional to Colaptes, has recently had three more added to it by Bonaparte. The only United States representative, however, is Colaptes.
Genus COLAPTES, Swainson
Colaptes, Swainson, Zoöl. Jour. III, Dec. 1827, 353. (Type, Cuculus auratus, Linn.)
Geopicos, Malherbe, Mém. Acad. Metz, 1849, 358. (G. campestris.)
Gen. Char. Bill slender, depressed at the base, then compressed. Culmen much curved, gonys straight; both with acute ridges, and coming to quite a sharp point with the commissure at the end; the bill, consequently, not truncate at the end. No ridges on the bill. Nostrils basal, median, oval, and exposed. Gonys very short; about half the culmen. Feet large; the anterior outer toe considerably longer than the posterior. Tail long, exceeding the secondaries; the feathers suddenly acuminate, with elongated points.
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 zone of tail broad, sharply defined. Wing, 6.70; tail, 5.00; bill, 1.60. Hab. Middle and Western Province of United States, south into Eastern Mexico to Mirador and Orizaba, and Jalapa.
b. Under surface and shafts of wings and tail gamboge-yellow.
3. C. chrysoides. Hood uniform light cinnamon; upper parts raw umber with sparse, very narrow and distant, bars of black. Rump immaculate; black terminal zone of tail occupying nearly the terminal half, and very sharply defined. Wing, 5.90; tail, 5.70; bill, 1.80. Hab. Colorado and Cape St. Lucas region of Southern Middle Province of United States.
B. Mustache black; a red nuchal crescent. Throat pinkish, hood ashy.
4. C. auratus. Shafts, etc., gamboge-yellow; upper parts olivaceous-brown, with narrow bars of black, about half as wide as the brown.
Rump immaculate; black terminal zone of under surface of tail broad, more than half an inch wide on outer feather. Edges of tail-feathers narrowly edged, but not indented, with whitish. Outer web of lateral feathers without spots of dusky. Wing, 6.10; tail, 4.80; bill, 1.58. Hab. Eastern Province of North America … var. auratus.
Rump spotted with black; black terminal zone of tail narrow, consisting on outer feather of an irregular spot less than a quarter of an inch wide. Edges of all the tail-feathers indented with whitish bars; outer web of lateral feathers with quadrate spots of dusky along the edge. Wing, 5.75; tail, 4.75; bill, 1.60. Hab. Cuba … var. chrysocaulosus.135
PLATE LIV.
1. Colaptes chrysoides. ♂ Arizona, 107.
2. Colaptes chrysoides. ♀ Cape St. Lucas.
3. Colaptes hybridus. ♂ Neb., 5214.
4. Melanerpes erythrocephalus. ♂ Neb., 38303.
5. Melanerpes torquatus. ♂ Cal., 6138.
Colaptes auratus, Swainson
FLICKER; YELLOW-SHAFTED WOODPECKER; HIGH-HOLDER
Cuculus auratus, Linn. Syst. Nat., I, (ed. 10,) 1758, 112. Picus auratus, Linn. Syst. Nat. 1, (ed. 12,) 1766, 174.—Forster, Phil. Trans. LXII, 1772, 383.—Vieillot, Ois. Am. Sept. II, 1807, 66, pl. cxxiii.—Wilson, Am. Orn. I, 1810, 45, pl. iii, f. 1.—Wagler, Syst. Av. 1827, No. 84.—Aud. Orn. Biog. I, 1832, 191; V, 540, pl. xxxvii.—Ib. Birds Amer. IV, 1842, 282, pl. cclxxiii.—Sundevall, Consp. 71. Colaptes auratus, Sw. Zoöl. Jour. III, 1827, 353.—Ib. F. Bor. Am. II, 1831, 314.—Bon. List, 1838.—Ib. Conspectus, 1850, 113.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 118.—Max. Cab. Jour. 1858, 420.—Dresser, Ibis, 1865, 470 (San Antonio, one specimen only seen).—Scl. Cat. 1862, 344.—Gray, Cat. 1868, 120.—Fowler, Am. Nat. III, 1869, 422.—Dall & Bannister, Tr. Chicago Ac. I, 1869, 275 (Alaska).—Samuels, 105.—Allen, B. E. Fla. 307.
Sp. Char. Shafts and under surfaces of wing and tail feathers gamboge-yellow. Male with a black patch on each side of the cheek. A red crescent on the nape. Throat and stripe beneath the eye pale lilac-brown. Back glossed with olivaceous-green. Female without the black cheek-patch.
Additional Characters. A crescentic patch on the breast and rounded spots on the belly black. Back and wing-coverts with interrupted transverse bands of black. Neck above and on the sides ashy. Beneath pale pinkish-brown, tinged with yellow on the abdomen, each feather with a heart-shaped spot of black near the end. Rump white. Length, 12.50; wing, 6.00.
Hab. All of eastern North America to the eastern slopes of Rocky Mountains; farther north, extending across along the Yukon as far at least as Nulato, perhaps to the Pacific. Greenland (Reinhardt). Localities: San Antonio, Texas, only one specimen (Dresser, Ibis, 1865, 470).
Specimens vary considerably in size and proportions; the more northern ones are much the larger. The spots vary in number and in size; they may be circular, or transversely or longitudinally oval. Western specimens appear paler. In a Selkirk Settlement specimen the belly is tinged with pale sulphur-yellow, the back with olivaceous-green.
This species, in general pattern of coloration, resembles the C. mexicanus, although the colors are very different. Thus the shafts of the quills, with their under surfaces, are gamboge-yellow, instead of orange-red. There is a conspicuous nuchal crescent of crimson wanting, or but slightly indicated, in mexicanus. The cheek-patch is pure black, widening and abruptly truncate behind, instead of bright crimson, pointed or rounded behind. The shade of the upper parts is olivaceous-green, instead of purplish-brown. The top of the head and the nape are more ashy. The chin, throat, neck, and sides of the head, are pale purplish or lilac brown, instead of bluish-ash; the space above, below, and around the eye of the same color, instead of having reddish-brown above and ashy below.