1742 THE PICARIAN BIRDS 



always to have been a very shy bird, so shy, indeed, that Audubon relates that he 

 once found a nearly-completed nest, which was deserted by the birds when they 

 perceived that their breeding home was discovered. 



Although the generic term Picus was taken by Linnaeus to include 



Great ac ^ w k o i e o f t jj e me mbers of the family, it is now restricted to the 

 Woodpecker 



great black woodpecker (P. martins} represented in the plate at the 



commencement of our notice of the family. The largest of the European wood- 

 peckers, this species is a member of the narrow-necked group, but the plumage on 

 the neck is denser than in any of its allies, probably on account of its inhabiting a 

 more northern area and higher attitudes than any other member of the section. It 

 has the third toe longer than the fourth, and further has the tarsometatarsus clothed 

 with feathers, indicating a woodpecker of a cold climate. It is a large species, 

 measuring seventeen inches in length, entirely black, with the top of the head and 

 crest crimson in the male, the red in the female being confined to a triangular patch 

 on the occiput. The species inhabits the pine forests of Europe and Siberia, and 

 occurs in Northern China and the north island of Japan. It has often been chron- 

 icled as a British bird, but no reliable evidence of its capture exists, and, as Mr. 

 Seebohm well observes, ' ' there is no bird less addicted to migration than the present 

 species, and it is a bird of too powerful flight to be driven from its native pine for- 

 ests even by the heaviest gales. ' ' 

 _. _. . While the whole of the preceding members of the family may be 



included in one subfamily, those remaining for consideration form a 

 second. Diminutive in size, the piculets have the beak and the ways of a wood- 

 pecker, but they have a soft tail like the wrynecks, and not a spiny one like the 

 majority of the family. Little is known about them beyond the fact that there are 

 four genera, with a geographical distribution which is one of the most curious of 

 any birds in the world. Two of these genera, Picumnus and Nesodites, have the 

 face feathered, and are chiefly represented in the New World, the last-named genus 

 being peculiar to the island of San Domingo. Verreauxia and Sasia, the other two 

 genera of piculets, are Old- World forms, the former being an inhabitant of the for- 

 est district of West Africa, and the latter of the Indian region. The largest of the 

 piculets does not exceed five inches in length, and many of them are not more than 

 three inches. 

 Green Piculets Until recently these tiny woodpeckers (Picumnus} were supposed to 



be peculiar to South America, which contains no less than thirty-two 

 species, but in certain parts of the Indian region a similar green piculet is found, 

 together with a second species in Southern China, and Mr. Hargitt has come to the 

 conclusion that these Oriental birds are absolutely of the same form as the South- 

 American ones, the resemblance being carried even to the pattern of the tail, which 

 is peculiar among birds; not only are the centre feathers half white, but the outer 

 feathers are also for the most part white, and these characteristic markings run 

 through the whole of the species, be they American or Oriental. Of the American 

 species, although so numerous, scarcely any details of habits have been published, 

 except that they seem to act the parts of tiny woodpeckers, but of the Indian 

 specis (P. innominatus} a little more is known. Inhabitants of the Himalayas and 



