464 CORACIIFORMES CHAD. 
erantor magellanicus, of Chili and Patagonia, has an even longer 
erest. Hemicercus is a genus of curious little crested black and 
white species, with very short and hardly rigid tails, occurring 
in India, the Malay countries, and Cochin China. Hemilophus 
pulverulentus, a larger bird of similar range, is remarkable for 
its enormous bill and curious dusty-looking slaty plumage. 
Under the head of Picws, which gives the Family its name, is 
placed by Hargitt only P. martius, the Black Woodpecker, an 
inhabitant of the pine-forests of Europe and Asia to Japan, quite 
erroneously asserted to have occurred in England. The colour 
is black with the exception of a red head, while the feathering 
extends down two-thirds of the metatarsus in front. It feeds chiefly 
on ants, insects, and their larvae, utters a loud rattling ery, drums 
on trees, and lays four or five eggs in holes bored in rotten wood. 
The Piculets are considered by most writers to form a Sub- 
family Picumninae, and connect the Picinae and the Lynginae, being 
the least specialized of the former; they constitute the genus Picum- 
nus, of which the thirty or more members have short, rounded tails 
without spiny shafts, and nostrils hidden by bristles. These diminu- 
tive birds occupy America from Honduras to Northern Argentina,as 
well as most of the Indian Region,one being a native of Africa; they 
are duller than most Woodpeckers, and are rufous, olive, or greyish, 
while often marked with black, or with red or yellow on the head. 
P. micromegas is confined to Hispaniola, P. (Verreauxia) africanus 
to the Gaboon districts, P. (Sasia) ochraceus and its two congeners 
are found in Northern India and the Malay countries. Of these only 
the first has any bright colour on the head. Sasia lacks the hallux. 
Sub-fam. 2. Lynginae—The Wrynecks may be distinguished 
from the typical Woodpeckers by their soft tails without spiny shafts, 
and naked nostrils with a partial covering. The plumage shews 
a peculiar mixture of black, brown, grey, and white, somewhat 
similar to that of a Nightjar. They feed chiefly upon the ground 
on ants and the like, and do not seek for insects under the bark 
of trees to the same extent that Woodpeckers do; while, instead 
of cutting out their own nesting-hole, they utilize cavities in 
stumps, posts, or even banks, to contain the white eggs, from five 
to ten in number, and often choose the same site annually. 
These birds have a curious habit of erecting the head-feathers and 
twisting the head itself from side to side, or almost over the back, 
either when sitting quietly on a branch or when molested. They 
