WOODPECKER 1049 



insects are unable to escape, as they otherwise would, and are* thus 

 ready for consumption by the birds on their return from the south. 

 But this statement has again been contradicted, and moreover it 

 is alleged these Woodpeckers follow their instinct so blindly that 

 "they do not distinguish between an acorn and a pebble," so that 

 they "fill up the holes they have drilled with so much labor, not 

 only with acorns but occasionally with stones " ((/. Baird, Brewer 

 and llidgway, N. Am. B. ii. pp. 569-571). Another remarkable 

 North-American form is the genus Colaptes, of which enough has 

 been said above (Flicker, pages 258-260),^ 



The Picidse have offered a fruitful ground for taxonomical 

 speculation ; but three subfamilies are admitted by all modern 

 systematists — the '^Voodpeckers j)roper, Picinx ; the Piculets, 

 Picumninse (page 720) and the Wrynecks. The most recent 

 examination of the Family is that by the late Mr. Hargitt (Cat. B. 

 Br. Mus. xviii.), who admitted 45 genera and 343 species or subspecies 



Bill and Foot of Celeus. (After Svvainson.) Foot of Picoides. 



of the first group.^ Having devoted himself for many years to the 

 study of the Piciclx, and having the largest collection of them in the 

 world to work upon, his results are doubtless more correct than those 

 of any of his predecessors,^ but it seems obvious that until the aid of 

 the anatomist is invoked no satisfactory arrangement can be supplied, 

 and it is not certain that even then will the desired end be reached, 

 for Macgillivray, who furnished Audubon with elaborate descriptions 

 of parts of the structure of several North-American forms, found 

 considerable differences to exist between species Avhich can hardly 

 be but nearly allied.'^ 



^ When more is known it -will very likely be found that a state of things 

 somewhat similar to that of Colaptes exists in the Pahearctic area in regard to the 

 various local races of, or "species" allied to, Dendrocop^is major and J>. jiiinor 

 respectively. 



- That some Woodpeckers, as in the well-known genus Picoides, have only three 

 toes is as little significant as is the same fact in certain Kingfishers (p. 488). 



^ Malherbe, Monogj^apldc dcs Picid^es, 4 vols, folio, Metz : 1859-62 ; Cahanis, 

 Museum Heincanum, iv. Heft 2 ; Sundevall, Conspectus Avium Picinarum, 

 Stockholm: 1866. 



* Some of the most striking of these differences often lie in tlie foi-m and 

 development of the hyoid bones, and of the muscles which work the extensile 



