I have found it very difficult to decide as to the propriety of separating a form of this species from central and southern Florida, but after having several times laid out and carefully compared the entire series of specimens from more southern localities, have come to the conclusion that to do so will, apparently, best express the facts of the case. Going by size alone, there is little difference between specimens from southern and central Florida and those from localities as far northward as Maryland (lowlands), southern Illinois, and Missouri; in fact some of these more northern specimens are quite as small as Florida ones. But the series from central and southern Florida are uniformly decidedly blacker than the rest. * * * I have restricted the name _pileatus_ to an intermediate form, characterized by the small size of _P. p. floridanus_ combined with an appreciably lighter (more slaty or sooty) coloration, often approaching closely the lightness of hue of _P. p. abieticola_. Bangs (1898), in separating the northern race from the southern, says that “southern South Carolina must be considered the type locality of the species, and birds from this region are as extreme of the southern race as those from Florida.” Furthermore, Arthur H. Howell (1932) observes that “careful study of a large series from Florida in comparison with a series of typical _pileatus_ from the Middle States shows no constant difference in color, as claimed by Ridgway for the subspecies ‘_floridanus_’; evidently specimens kept for some years become more brownish (less sooty), which fact probably explains Ridgway’s mistake, he having compared fresh Florida skins with older skins from the Middle States.” Probably, also, if specimens from the two regions in similar seasonal plumage were compared, there would not be so much difference in coloration as Ridgway claims. Even if Ridgway is correct in his diagnosis, it would seem unwise, in the author’s opinion, to recognize the Florida race and thus establish an intermediate race, where the gradation in both size and color warrants the naming of only the two extremes. Mr. Howell (1932) says of its haunts: “The pileated woodpecker in Florida inhabits several different types of country--pine woods, cypress swamps, hardwood swamps, and hammocks of cabbage palmetto and other trees. The birds are perhaps most numerous in hammocks or swamps, where there is an abundance of decaying trees.”