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IYNGIPICUS TEMMINCKIL.

Temminck’s Pygmy Woodpecker.

Picus temmincki, Malherbe, Rev. et Mag. de Zool. 1849, p. 529.—Bp. Consp. i. p. 137 (1850).—Malh. Monogr.
Picid. i. p. 155, pl. xxxvi. fig. 3 (1861).—Sundev. Consp. Av. Picin. p. 29 (1866).—Gray, List
Picid. Brit. Mus. p. 43 (1868).—Id. Hand-l. B. ii. p. 184, no. 8583 (1870).

Yungipicus temmincki, Bp. Consp. Volucr. Zygod. p. 8 (1854).—Walden, Trans. Zool. Soe. viii. pp. 41, 111
(1872).—Salvad. Ann. Mus. Civ. Genova, vii. p. 647 (1875).—Meyer, Ibis, 1879, p. 157.

Beopipo temminchi, Cab. & Heine, Mus. Hein. Th. iv. p. 60 (1863).

Yungiceps temmincki, Meyer, J. f. O. 1873, p. 405 (lapsu).

Tyngipicus temmincki, Hargitt, Ibis, 1882, p. 49.

 

Temmincx’s Pygmy Woodpecker belongs to the section of the genus Jyngipicus which contains two species
only. The other one, J. ramsay2, is figured in the present work, and is the representative Lyngipicus in
Borneo. Both these Woodpeckers differ from all the other members of the genus in having the back of an
olive-brown colour, with lighter bars or streaks ; and, as Mr. Hargitt has pointed out, there is really nothing
in common between them and J. kisuki, to which the late Prince Bonaparte compared J. temmincki. Its
nearest allies among the pied members of the genus Lyngipicus would be I. semicoronatus and I. meniscus,
both of which have an occipital band of scarlet instead of the two half-concealed tufts which are found on
the occiput of most of the species. The occipital band, however, of the Celebean bird is of a somewhat
different character from that which obtains in the two species above mentioned ; for, instead of conspicuously
surrounding the occiput, it is interrupted in the middle by a whitish nuchal patch. This was duly noted
by Count Salvadori; but Lord Tweeddale appears to have been the only ornithologist who remarked the
peculiar way in which the scarlet occipital spot spreads on to the sides of the neck, and it is only ina
specimen in his collection that I have observed this character fully developed. At one time I thought
perhaps there might be two species in Celebes; but Mr. Hargitt informs me that he does not consider this
to be probable, and that the extension of the scarlet spot is but a sign of the fully adult bird.

Temminck’s Pygmy Woodpecker has as yet only been found in the neighbourhood of Macassar, where
Mr. Wallace obtained it, and near Menado, where it was met with by Dr. Meyer.

The figures in the Plate represent an adult pair of birds, the upper one being the male, and the lower
one the female. They are both from the Tweeddale collection, and have been kindly lent to me by
Captain Wardlaw Ramsay. ‘The male is the bird referred to by the late Lord Tweeddale, and mentioned
above as having an unusual development of the scarlet nape-patch. Both sexes are represented of the
natural size.

[R. B. 8.]