Printed on the plate
“Three-toed Woodpecker”
Males, 1. Female, 2.
Modern identification
Picoides arcticus
- Certain
- Woodpeckers · Picidae
Why
Audubon's “Three-toed Woodpecker” (Picus tridactylus) is today's Black-backed Woodpecker: the backs that show are solid glossy black, Audubon wrote in 1839 that his bird is Swainson's Apternus arcticus, and Ridgway lists the plate under P. arcticus. The American Three-toed Woodpecker is plate 417, figs. 3–4
Sources
engraved legend; Audubon, Ornithological Biography v (1839); Ridgway, Birds of North and Middle America vi (1914); audubon.org; the plate
Who made the plate
Drawn from Nature by J. J. Audubon, F. R. S. F. L. S.Engraved, Printed, & Coloured, by R. Havell, London 1832.
- John James Audubon drew
- Robert Havell Jr. engraved, printed and coloured
As the credit line gives it. More on who made these plates.
