AYES. 457 



on ants and their pups (so-named ants' eggs) ; it turns about its head 

 often very far backward (hence its name). The female lays 7 — 1 1 white 

 eggs, without building a nest, in hollows of trees, often low near the 

 ground. — Yunx pcdoralis Vigors, De Lafresnaye, Guer. Magas. de 

 Zool. 183s, Qis. PI. 33; from the south of Africa. 



Picumnus Temm. Bill sliort, with culmen snljstraiglit. Nostrils 

 basal, covered by setaceous recumbent plumes. Tail very short, 

 with feathers flexile, rounded at the point. Wings with first quill 

 very short, second and third gradually longer, fourth and fifth 

 longest of all. 



a) With hallux distinct. Piculus IsiD. Geoffr. St.-Hii.. 



Sp. Picumnus nunidissimus, Yunx minutissima Gm., Pipra minuta L., 

 Picumnus cirratus Temm,, PI. col. 371, fig. i ; — Picumnus Bitffoni La- 

 FRESN., Buff. PI. enl. 786, fig. i, &c. (All the species from the tropical 

 regions of America, except one from India at the Himalayan mountains 

 Picmnnus innomincdus Burton, Proceed. Zool. See, 1835, p. 154, Vivia 

 nepalensis Hodgson.) 



b) With feet tridactylous, hallux none. Sasia Hodgs., Picumnus IsiD. 

 Geoffr. 



Sp. Picumnus abnor mis Teu^u, PI. col. 371, fig. 3; Java, Sumatra, Borneo. 



Picus L. Bill moderate, straight, polyhedral, with tip cuneate, 

 compressed. Nostrils basal, oval, patulous, covered with recum- 

 bent feathers. Tongue with point subulate, horny, barbed back- 

 ward. Tail cuneate, with ten feathers somewhat long, acuminate, 

 rigid, with the two least, one on each side, incumbent on the first 

 longer. Wings moderate, with first quill short, fourth mostly or 

 fifth longest of all. 



The woodpeckers live in forests, make their nest in the hollows of trees, 

 which they chisel out with their bill, and lay their pure white eggs (3 — 8) 

 on shreds of wood. They feed on insects, especially such as live under the 

 bark of trees in decayed wood, and peck deep holes in trees in order to 

 find them. Since, however, they spare the sound stems, they are rather 

 useful than injurious. They climb from the root of the trees often along 

 the stem to the top, springing with the back upwards, in which motion 

 their rigid elastic tail is serviceable. Some species, as Picus viridis, seek 

 their food on the ground also, like the wryneck. The colours are usually 

 strongly contrasted, black and white, or green and yellow with a red spot 

 on the top of the head. 



In the skeleton the cervical vertebra, twelve in number, are remarkable 

 for their great development. The tail has mostly seven vertebra, of which 

 the last is unusually large, with strong ridge-like spinous processes and a 

 pentangular disc on the inferior surface, and seems, from the double trans- 

 verse processes, to be formed from the coalition of two vertebra. The 



