PICID^ — THE WOODPECKERS. 559 



place for the purposes of incubation. At Tucson, in Arizona, he found it 

 frequenting the cornfields, where it might be seen alighting on the old liedge- 

 posts in search of insects. Its note, he adds, resembles very much that of 

 the Eed-headed Woodpecker. He afterwards met with this bird in Cali- 

 fornia, in considerable numbers, on the Colorado. Besides its ordinary notes, 

 resembling those of the Mclanerpes erythrocephalus, it varies them with a soft 

 plaintive cry, as if hurt or wounded. He found their stomachs filled with 

 the white gelatinous berry of a parasitic plant which grows abundantly on 

 the mesquite-trees, and the fruit of which forms the principal food of many 

 species of birds during the fall. 



Dr. Coues gives this bird as rare and probably accidental in the immediate 

 vicinity of Fort Whipple, but as a common bird in the valleys of the Gila 

 and of the Lower Colorado, where it has the local name of Suivarroio, or 

 Saguaro, on account of its partiality for the large cactuses, with the juice of 

 which plant its plumage is often found stained. 



Dr. Cooper found this Woodpecker abundant in winter at Fort Mohave, 

 when they feed chiefly on the berries of the mistletoe, and are very shy. 

 He rarely saw them pecking at the 'trees, but they seemed to depend for a 

 living on insects, which were numerous on the foliage during the spring. 

 They have a loud note of alarm, strikingly similar to that of the Plicenopcpla 

 nitens, which associated with them in the mistletoe-boughs. 



About the 25th of March he found them preparing their nests in burrows 

 near the dead tops of trees, none of them, so far as he saw, being accessible. 

 By the last of May they had entirely deserted the mistletoe, and were prob- 

 ably feeding their young on insects. 



Genus MELANERFES, Swainson. 



Melancrpes, Swainson, F. B. A. II, 1831. (Type, Pirns erythrocqjhalus.) 

 . Melampicus (Section 3), Malhekbe, Mem. Ac. Metz, 1849, 365. 

 Asyndesmus, Coues, Pr. A. N. S. 1866, 55. (Type, Picus torquatus.) 



Gen. Char. Bill about equal to the head ; broader than high at the base, but becom- 

 ing compressed immediately anterior to the commencement of the gonys. Culmen and 

 gonys with a moderately decided angular ridge ; both decidedly curved from the very 

 base. A rather prominent acute ridge commences at the base of the mandible, a little 

 below the ridge of the culmen, and proceeds but a short distance anterior to the nostrils 

 (about one third of the way), when it sinks down, and the bill is then smooth. The 

 lateral outlines are gently concave from the basal two thirds ; then gently convex to the 

 tip, which does not exhibit any abrupt bevelling. Nostrils open, broadly oval ; not con- 

 cealed by the feathers, nor entirely basal. Fork of chin less than half lower jaw. The 

 outer pair of toes equal. Wings long, broad ; lengthened. Tail-feathers broad, with 

 lengthened points. 



The species all have the back black, without any spots or streaks anywhere. 



Dr. Covies places M. torquatus in a new genus, Asyndesmus, characterized 

 l)y a peculiar texture of the under part and nuchal collar, in which the 



