1048 WOODPECKER 
the Green Woodpecker in size, and except for its red cap is wholly 
black. It is chiefly an inhabitant of the fir forests of the Old 
World, from Lapland to Galicia, and across 
Siberia to Japan.t In North America this &g=———-—__ 
species is replaced by P. pileatus, there a — 
generally known as the Logeock, an equally 
fine species, but variegated with white ; a 
and further to the southward occur two that are finer still, P. or 
Jampephilus principalis, the IVORY-BILL? (p. 460), and P. imperialis. 
The Picine indeed flourish in the New World, nearly one-half of the 
described species being American, but out of the large number that 
inhabit Canada and the United States there is here room to mention 
only one at any length. 
This is the Californian Woodpecker, Jelanerpes formicivorus, 
which has been said to dis- 
play an amount of providence 
beyond almost any other bird 
in the number of acorns which 
it collects and, as shewn in 
the accompanying figure, fixes 
tightly in holes which it pur- 
posely makes in the bark of 
trees, and thus ‘‘a large pine 
forty or fifty feet high will 
present the appearance of 
being closely studded with 
brass nails, the heads only 
being visible.” An extraor- 
dinary thing is that this is not 
done to furnish food in winter, 
for the species migrates, and 
after journeying a thousand 
miles or more only returns in 
spring to the forests where 
its supplies are laid up. It has been asserted that the acorns thus 
stored are always those which contain a maggot, and, being fitted 
into the sockets prepared for them cup-end foremost, the enclosed 
CALIFORNIAN WOODPECKER 
(Melanerpes formicivorus). 
sense for all birds that climbed trees, not only Woodpeckers, but even the 
NuruHatcnH and TREE-CREEPER. The adjective martius loses all its significance 
if it be removed from Picus, as some even respectable writers have separated it. 
1 The persistency with which many writers on British birds have for years 
included this species among them is a marvellous instance of the durability of 
error, for not a case of its asserted occurrence in this country is on record that will 
bear investigation, and the origin of the mistake has been more than once shewn. 
? On the threatened extinction of this species, cf Hasbrouck, Auk, 1891, 
pp. 174-186. 
