Bryant.] 



92 



the Downy Woodpecker, P. piibescens, aided occasionally by the Hairy 

 Woodpecker, P. villosus. In certain parts of the West, however, it is 

 said that great damage is done to orchards by the yellow-bellied Wood- 

 pecker, S. varius; and Dr. Hoy of Racine, Wis., has advanced the theory 

 that the object of the bird in so doing is to obtain the inner bark for 

 food. A number of specimens of this bird forwarded by Dr. Hoy to the 

 Smithsonian Institution have been placed in my hands by Professor 

 Baird for examination ; as the specimens are alcoholic the soft parts are, 

 as is always the case, too much distorted to be available for correct 

 comparisons; the gizzard, however, seems smaller and the proven- 

 triculus larger than in other species of this family with which I have 

 compared them. The contents of the stomach are berries, small 

 coleoptera, larvae of boring beetles, ants and fragments of the inner bark 

 of the apple tree. In order that the extremely aberrant forms of the 

 tongue of this bird can be more readily seen I subjoin brief descriptions 

 of the tongue of a tropical Woodpecker, of a Colaptes, and of the bird 

 in question. 



Tongue of P. villosus. Free portion twenty-seven millimetres in 

 length, of which the horny tip occupies nine. The general shape of the 

 soft part is cylindrical, somewhat flattened towards the tip and covered 

 with numerous transverse wrinkles deepest towards the base ; its diame- 

 ter at the base three and and a half millimetres and next the horny tip 

 one in breadth and three-quarters in thickness. The horny tip is tri- 

 angular, one and a half millimetres in breadth, and three-quartere in 

 thickness at the base, terminating anteriorly in a sharp point, its 

 upper surface flattened, slightly concave near the base, the under sur- 

 face slightly convex, the sides smooth on the basal half and with the 

 anterior half armed with five or six strong horny points or spiculae 

 projecting backward at an angle of about thirty degrees ; the largest 

 nearest the base. The cornua of the hyoid bone curve round the base 

 of the skull, gradually converging to the vertex, then leaving the 

 median line together run round the right orbit terminating opposite 

 the centre of its posterior border. 



Tongue of C. auratus. Free portion thirty-nine millimetres in length, 

 of which the horny tip occupies only two and a half. The general 

 appearance of the soft parts similar to that of P. villosus but somewhat 

 less flattened towards the tip ; its diameter at its base three millimetres, 

 diminishing to one and a quarter in breadth and one in thickness next 

 the horny tip, which is one millimetre in breadth and one half in thick- 

 ness ; at the base acutely triangular with the apex broadly truncated, 

 the basal half of the sides smooth and one or two spiculae on the ante- 

 rior half similar in direction but not so large as those of P. villosus, 

 cornua of hyoid bone similar in direction to those of P. villosus as far 

 the vei-tex, then running to the bottom of the anterior part of the nasal 

 groove. 



