1048 



WOODPECKER 



Picus. (After Swainson.) 



the Green Woodpecker in size, and except for its red cap is wholly- 

 black. It is chiefly an inhabitant of the fir forests of the Old 

 World, from Lapland to Galicia, and across 

 Siberia to Japan.^ In North America this 

 species is replaced by F. pileahis, there 

 generally known as the Logcock, an equally 

 fine species, but variegated with white; 

 and further to the southward occur two that are finer still, P. or 

 Campephihts principalis, the Ivory-bill- (p. 460), and P. imperialis. 

 The Picinx indeed flourish in the New AVorld, nearly one-half of the 

 described species being American, but out of the large number that 

 inhabit Canada and the United States there is here room to mention 

 only one at any length. 



This is the Californian Woodpecker, Melanerpes formicivorus, 



which has been said to dis- 

 play an amount of providence 

 beyond almost any other bird 

 in the number of acorns which 

 it collects and, as shewn in 

 the accompanying figure, fixes 

 tightly in holes which it pur- 

 posely makes in the bark of 

 trees, and thus "a large pine 

 forty or fifty feet high will 

 present the appearance of 

 being closely studded with 

 brass nails, the heads only 

 being visible." An extraor- 

 dinary thing is that this is not 

 done to furnish food in winter, 

 for the species migrates, and 

 after journeying a thousand 

 miles or more only i-eturns in 

 spring to the forests where 

 It has been asserted that the acorns thus 



Californian Woodpecker 

 {Mela nerpcs formicivorus). 



its supplies are laid up. 



stored are always those which contain a maggot, and, being fitted 



into the sockets prepared for them cup-end foremost, the enclosed 



sense for all birds that climbed trees, not only Woodpeckers, but even the 

 Nuthatch and Tree-creeper. The adjective martins loses all its significance 

 if it be removed from Pirns, as some even respectable writers have separated it. 



^ The persistency with which many writers on British birds have for years 

 included this species among them is a marvellous instance of the durability of 

 error, for not a case of its asserted occurrence in this country is on record that will 

 bear investigation, and the origin of the mistake has been more than once shewn. 



^ On the threatened extinction of this species, cf, Hasbrouck, Auk, 1891, 

 pp. 174-186. 



