1740 THE PICARIAN BIRDS 



pygmy woodpeckers {lyngipicus) . As their name implies, these are birds of small 

 size, and generally of brown plumage, with white bars, while most of the species, 

 instead of a red head, have a little ornamental tuft of red feathers on the side of the 

 crown. The pygmy woodpeckers have also a more pointed wing than their allies, 

 and their distribution is peculiar, since they are found in Senegambia and North- 

 eastern Africa where they are very rare, and then the genus reappears in India, 

 where it is by no means uncommon, and thence extends through the Burmese coun- 

 tries to China, and north to Eastern Siberia and Japan, while to the southward it is 

 found throughout the whole of the Malay countries and islands, extending eastward 

 to the islands of L,ombok and Flores. The habits of these woodpeckers are similar 

 to those of the rest of the family, but they are stated to nest in horizontal boughs 

 like a barbet, instead of hollowing out a hole for themselves in the trunk of a tree. 

 _ . This {Lepocestes pyrrops) and the other species of the same genus 



Headed are characterized by their very long and stout bills; the nostrils being 

 Bay exposed, and not, as in the case of most woodpeckers, hidden by 



Wood- plumelets. This feature, and the very short tail in proportion to their 

 pecker s j ze ^ ma y nav e been brought about by the peculiar habits of the birds, 

 for Davison says that he was greatly puzzled when he first came across the species, 

 and could hardly believe that it was a woodpecker at all. 



Remarkable for their entirely rufous plumage, and for their nearly 



" obsolete first toe, the claw on which is scarcely to be traced, the 

 peckers 



rufous woodpeckess (Micropternus) also lack the nasal " shelf" on the 



bill. Five species of the genus are known, ranging from India and China to the 

 Malayan countries and islands. Mr. Gates describes the Burmese species (M. 

 phceoceps) as a very silent bird, seldom uttering a note, and creeping about in a 

 quiet stealthy way. Both he and Mr. Davison call attention to the bodies of the 

 birds having a peculiar smell, and being smeared with some gummy substance. 

 The latter writer adds: " They nearly always have their tails more or less studded 

 with ants' heads. These are the large red ants of the jungle, w r ho, when once they 

 seize anything, never loose their hold. You may pick them to pieces, but their 

 heads hold on -still. They are the sumput-api or fire ant of the Malays, and they 

 bite unpleasantly. They seize hold of the tail feathers of these woodpeckers; their 

 bodies get rubbed off, but the heads remain, sometimes in scores, adhering to the 

 lateral webs of the tail feathers. ' ' In the Eastern Himalayas the present species 

 also occurs, and builds in ants' nests; Mr. Hume stating that a nest of this bird was 

 one of the most remarkable he has ever seen. From the end of a large mango 

 branch ants of some species had constructed a huge almost globular nest about thir- 

 teen inches long and eleven in diameter, involving as these nests commonly do, all 

 the leaves and twigs springing from that part of the branch. The nest is a gray- 

 brown mass of a half felt-like half papier-mache'-like substance, into which the 

 woodpecker had bored a circular entrance about two inches in diameter, and inside 

 it had scooped out a circular cavity some five inches in diameter. 



With this genus we come to the second division of the more typical representa- 

 tives of the family, which may be known as narrow-necked woodpeckers; the nar- 

 rowing of the neck by which they are distinguished causing the head to appear 



