428 NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



polychroic state of the yellow-shafted flicker and the red-shafted species, we refer to 

 the introduction to this volume (p. 8), where this question has been treated of in 

 detail, and where the Cape flicker ( C. chrysoides), with red moustache, like C. cafer (or 

 mexicanus), but with yellow shafts and without red nuchal crescent, like C. auratus, was 

 also mentioned. Closely allied to the flickers are the South American ground flickers 

 (Soroplex). The habits of the typical species, S. campestris, are described by Bur- 

 meister as follows: " This flicker is one of the first peculiar objects to attract one's 

 attention when entering the open campos districts of the interior of Brazil. They are 

 soon discovered hopping about on the lower trees in small companies, and the observer 

 is greatly astonished to see one or the other once in a while jump down and walk 

 about on the ground. This bird is especially engaged in search of the termites, and 

 destroys the covered passages which these insects construct in the grooves of the bark 

 in order to reach their nests undisturbed. But even these structures, strongly made 

 of clay, the ground flicker knows how to open, and how to catch their inhabitants." 

 The South African Geocolaptes olwaceus is still more partial to the ground, for, accord- 

 ing to Layard, " it never pecks wood, but bores its way into the banks of rivers, sides 

 of hills, or the walls of mud buildings, in search of its prey and for a home for its 

 young." 



The green woodpeckers, as the name indicates, are very conspicuous for their 

 more or less green colors, ornamented, as in most woodpeckers, with red. A well- 

 known representative of this group, which, as shown in the accompanying wood-cut, 

 also spends part of its life on the ground, spearing unfortunate ants by its worm- 

 like barbed tongue, is the yaffle (Picus viridis), the common green woodpecker of 

 Europe, celebrated for its laughing voice, which it is said to produce especially at the 

 approach of rain, and many a farmer on the other side of the ocean pays more atten- 

 tion to the ' indications ' and ' probabilities ' of this sagacious bird than to those of the 

 meteorological stations. The three-toed Indian genus, Gecimdus, seems to be related 

 to this group. 



Before mentioning the typical pied woodpeckers we will have to say a few words 

 of a somewhat peculiar form from India, as by some ornithologists it has been regarded 

 as forming a ' sub-family ' of its own. The short-tailed woodpeckers (Ifemicircus) are 

 especially remarkable for their short and rounded tails, the feathers of which are 

 scarcely rigid at all. They are small birds, without red in their plumage, and but little 

 is known of their habits. Mr. Jerdon says of H. canente that it has " on the centre of 

 the back a brush of dark sap-green bristly feathers, smeared with a viscid secretion 

 from a gland beneath." 



A sort of transition from the foregoing to the pied woodpeckers (Dryobates) is 

 formed by the oriental sub-genus Yungipicus, in which the lateral tail-feathers are 

 less rigid than the central ones. Dri/obates proper contains a great number of small 

 or medium-sized species in the more northern parts of the two hemispheres. They 

 are parti-colored, white and black, with red markings on the head and also often on 

 the under side. Three European species are represented in the accompanying cut, 

 from which, in a general way, our North American species differ but little except in 

 not having the white tail-feathers barred with black. This difference is very curious, 

 inasmuch as the Siberian representatives of the European species, and still more those 

 which inhabit Kamtschatka, show a tendency towards losing the dark cross-bars ; but 

 this is followed by a general increase of the white all over the body, while in 

 the Nearctic species the greater amount of white on the tail is independent of the dis- 



