212 



AVES. 



Fig. 99.— Sternum of 

 Jacamar. 



these, however, not heing the corresponding toes to those which are joined together in the King- 

 fishers. [The sternal apparatus (fig. 99) is most nearly related to that of the Bee-eaters, but much 

 shorter, with a lower medial ridge ; the Jacamars thus holding the same analogy with those birds which 

 the Todies do to the Kingfishers ; and like the Todies, they have also a considerably lengthened, exceed- 

 ingly thin, lamina-like tongue, a small and rather muscular gizzard, short intestines, 

 and similar great coeca : both genera are very slightly made, have exceedingly thin 

 skins, and soft puffy plumage (the character of the feathers being however different) ; 

 the nostrils are a little removed from the base of the bill, and quite exposed ; the 

 gape is furnished with vibrissa; ; and they subsist by taking insects in the manner 

 of a Flycatcher]. Their feathers have always a brilliant metallic shine. They live 

 solitarily in humid woods, and nestle on low branches, [or, more probably, as Le Vail- 

 lant was informed, in the holes of trees, laying blue eggs]. 



The American species have a long beak, which is quite straight [the diagnosis of the restricted 

 Galbula.] These are much more numerous than the following. 

 Others, from the Indian Archipelago, [a mistake of Le Vaillant, all the species inhabiting America, like the 

 Todies,] have a shorter and more inflated beak, which is a little arched, and thus approximates that of the Bee- 

 eaters. Their anterior toes are more separated. They constitute the Jacamerops of Le Vaillant, and that naturalist 

 even figures one species devoid of the ridge to the upper mandible. 

 Lastly, there is one in Brazil, which has only three toes. 



The Woodpeckers (Picus, Lin.) — 

 Are well characterized by their long, straight, and angular bill, the end of which is compressed into a 

 wedge adapted for perforating the bark of trees ; by their slender vermiform tongue, armed towards 

 the tip with lateral retroverted spines, and which, by the action of the elastic cornua of the hyoid bone, 

 can be thrust far out from the beak : and finally by their tail, composed of ten feathers with stiff and 

 elastic stems, which serve them as a support in climbing, besides which the twelfth pair of tail-feathers 

 invariably exist externally, of minute size. They are pre-eminently climbing birds, which traverse the 

 bark of trees in every direction, [or rather, like the Tree-creepers, they are unable to proceed in a 

 downward direction, otherwise than obliquely backward ; whereas the Nuthatches and 

 Barbets climb perpendicularly upw ard or downward with equal facility] ; striking with 

 the beak, and insinuating their long tongue into chinks and crevices, to draw out the 

 larvae of insects on which they feed, [besides which, some of them subsist largely on 

 acorns and nuts, even upon soft fruits, and on eggs.*] The tongue, in addition to 

 its armature, is supplied with a viscid mucus secreted by large salivary glands, 

 [which mucus is conveyed by a double duct that opens at its tip]: it is retracted by two 

 muscles wound like ribands round the trachea, and when thus drawn in, the horns 

 of the os hyoides slide round the skull beneath the skin nearly to the base of the 

 upper mandible, the sheath of the tongue corrugating into folds at the bottom of the 

 throat. Their stomach is nearly membranous, [though considerably less lax than in 

 the Cuckoos] ; and they have no cceca.f Shy and wary, these birds pass the greater 

 portion of their time solitarily, and, at the nuptial season, may often be heard sum- 

 moning the female by rattling the beak against a dead branch. They nidificate once 

 a year in the holes of trees, and both sexes incubate by turns. 



[The species are extremely numerous, and generally distributed, with the exception of Australia. The great ma- 

 jority have crimson feathers on the head, and the largest of them have the rest of the plumage mostly pied with 

 white. Such, in America, are the great Californian Woodpecker (P. imperialis, Gould,) and the Ivory-billed and 

 Pileated Woodpeckers, wherein the actual texture of the beak closely resembles ivory ; also, the Great Black 

 Woodpecker of Europe, which is stated to have been sometimes met with in Britain. 



Others, forming an extremely numerous group, the Dendrocopus, Swainson, differ little but in being smaller 

 and more mottled with white. They inhabit, like the former, northern or mountain districts, feed much on nuts 

 and acorns, and never descend to the ground. Of four in Europe, two inhabit Britain, the Picus major and 

 P. minor, Auctorum. 



Some, the Aptemus, Swainson, are destitute of the ordinary hind-toe. There are several species, and one in 

 northern Europe (P. tridactylus, Lin.) 



]\lany of those of tropical climates have full soft crests, and generally bald necks : these constitute the Malacolo- 

 p/ais, Swainson. 



Fig. 100.— Sternum of 

 Pied Woodpecker. 



* Acdubon, Pic. erythrocephalus. 



+ Prof. Owen found, in a single individual of the common Green 



Woodpecker, two cceca of moderate size. In many that we have ex 

 amined, these appendages were invariably wanting. — Ed. 



