PICARI.E. 



313 



by the toes. The claw of the hind toe is smaller than the 

 claw of the middle toe; at least, it is not larger. 



The wings, endlessly variable in form in the different 

 representatives, agree in having ten* primaries, of which 

 the first is rarely so reduced in length as to be called 

 spurious or even very short. An exception to this point 

 just stated occurs in the division of the woodpeckers, 

 Pici, where there are but nine developed primaries. The 

 greater wing coverts are at least half as long as the quills 

 that they cover. The number of rectrices is never more 

 than ten, occasionally there are eight. 



The bill assumes some of the most extraordinary 

 shapes, but is never cered or hooked nor swollen at the 

 nostrils. The food habits of the Picarise are as various 

 as the families composing the order. The cuckoos are 

 insectivorous; the woodpeckers are almost exclusively 

 so, although the red-headed woodpecker does not object 

 to a fruit dessert after digging out a hundred or so grubs. 

 The whip-poor-wills are insectivorous, and their hunting 

 begins when the work of other birds ceases. The goat 

 suckers or night hawks, the swifts, and the humming 

 birds are also insectivorous. The trogons and the 

 toucans, tropical birds, are frugivorous, or fruit-eating. 

 The kingfishers have two branches : one of them insectiv- 

 orous, and the other carnivorous, that is, fish-eating. (Fig. 

 1 10.) The small Texas kingfisher fishes on dry land for the 

 numerous grasshoppers which are to be found in the grain 

 fields. The kingfisher nests are hollowed out in the steep, 

 perhaps rocky, bank of some canyon or stream side. The 

 burrow may be two or three feet deep and is dug out by 

 the bird. 



Chapman says that woodpeckers are found every- 

 where in the world except on the two islands of Madagas- 



