PICIDZ. AQ1 
Order PICI. 
Fam. PICIDA. 
This family of birds is usually, and properly, divided into three subfamilies, of which 
by far the largest is the stiff-tailed scansorial species commonly known as Woodpeckers, 
or Picine. The other two subfamilies have soft rounded tails, not stiffened or used 
for scansorial purposes. Only one of these two subfamilies—the Picumnine—is 
represented in America, the other, the Iyngine or Wrynecks, being exclusively an 
Old-World group. 
The family, as a whole, is distributed over a large portion of the world, with the 
exception of Madagascar, New Guinea and the adjoining islands, Australia, and the 
whole of the islands of the Pacific Ocean. ; 
Mr. Hargitt, in his recent catalogue of the Picide in the British Museum, includes 
385 species and subspecies in the whole family. Of these considerably more than half, 
viz. 227, are found in America. Only two of the genera admitted by Mr. Hargitt 
occur in both Old and New Worlds, viz. Dendrocopus and Picoides. The proportion 
of genera found in America is not so large as that of the species, the numbers being— 
America 21, Old World 39. 
In Mexico and Central America we are able to enumerate in the following pages 
about 43 species, which is a large number for the area investigated. 
Subfam. PICINA. 
Cauda rigida, scansoria. 
a. Cervix haud contracta, plumis normalibus vestita ; caput haud amplificatum. 
a’. Digitus pedis medius quam digitus externus (reversus) longior, aut wqualis. 
a". Tarsus quam digitus pedis externus (reversus) cum ungue longior ; 
maxilla supra nares fere lavis. 
COLAPTES. 
Colaptes, Swainson, Zool. Journ. i. p. 853 (1827); Hargitt, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. xviii. p. 10 
(1890). 
Mr. Hargitt includes thirteen species in the genus Colaptes, but from these C. ayresi 
must be deducted, being, by many ornithologists, considered to be a hybrid between 
C. auratus and C. mexicanus. Of the remaining twelve species, only three occur 
BIOL. CENTR.-AMER., Aves, Vol. II., January 1895. 51 
