In the Revue et Magazin de Zoologie, for 1849, p. 542, M. Alfred Malherbe, who has devoted much attention to the study of the woodpeckers, has named a species _Melampicos flavigula_, and has very carefully pointed out differences which he considers sufficient to establish it as distinct from _Picus melanopogon_. He relies almost entirely on the greater or lesser extent and relative widths of the white, black and red spaces on their heads. Notwithstanding the extensive knowledge which M. Malherbe undoubtedly possesses from his great attention to this family of birds, I cannot see that there are any characters given which may not be very properly attributed to differences in age or sex, and I have accordingly felt myself justified in suspecting it to be the same as the present species, having before me specimens which I understand to represent both of them. No dependence can be placed in the extent of the red color on the head, as a character, so far as I have observed, in the woodpeckers of the United States. In _Picus pubescens_, a common species in Pennsylvania, the young male has the head above entirely crimson, which color in the adult is restricted to a narrow occipital band. I do not know that the change in others of our species is so decided, but the width of the occipital stripe is much varied in different specimens of the same species, and my impression is, that as a specific character this very ornamental portion of the plumage of woodpeckers ought to be estimated with great caution. [Illustration: Plate 3 The Black-crested Chickadee Lophophanes atricristatus (_Cassin_)] LOPHOPHANES ATRICRISTATUS.—(Cassin.) The Black-crested Chickadee. PLATE III.—Male and Female. The pleasant little birds of the same family as those known in Great Britain as Tits or Tit-mice, have received in America, from the characteristic notes of several of the species, the name of Chickadees. Popular names being entirely of a local character and of little scientific value, we invariably prefer to give those by which species are known in this country instead of the names of birds allied to or resembling them which inhabit Europe, though the latter are generally adopted by American writers.