PICIDJE THRIPIAS 137 



Mus.) ; Natal Durban, Weenan, and Newcastle (Bt. Mus.), 

 Echowe (Woodward) ; Orange Eiver Colony Kroonstad (Symonds), 

 Rhenoster river (Barratt) ; Transvaal Swaziland (Buckley), Bar- 

 berton (Kendall), Lydenburg dist. (Francis in S. A. Mus.), Pretoria 

 (Distant), Eustenburg (Ayres) ; Bechuanaland Kanye (Exton), 

 Bamangwato (Buckley) ; Rhodesia Tati and Ramequeban rivers 

 (Gates), Salisbury dist. (Marshall) ; German south-west Africa 

 Gt. Namaqualand, Swakop river, Otjimbinque, Elephant Vley 

 (Andersson) ; Portuguese east Africa Zambesi valley (Alexander). 



Habits. The Cardinal Woodpecker is a somewhat tame little 

 bird found singly or in pairs all over the country ; it affects trees of 

 a moderate size, especially the mimosas, which grow along the river 

 beds, it also frequently perches on the dead stumps of the euphorbias 

 and aloes ; it spends its time like other Woodpeckers tapping the 

 branches and searching the trunks of trees for its food, which 

 consists wholly of insects, chiefly small Coleoptera. Little has 

 been noticed about its breeding habits, but Layard states that a 

 pair nested annually in an old apple tree on Mr. Melck's farm at the 

 Berg river, and that the tree was riddled with their holes. Levail- 

 lant states that they lay five to seven pure white eggs, and that 

 both cock and hen share in the labour of incubation. 



Genus IV. THRIPIAS. 



Type. 

 Thripias, Cab. & Heine, Mus. Hein. iv, p. 121 (1863)... T. namaquus. 



Bill stout and strong, longer than the head ; a well-marked 

 nasal shelf on either side of the culmen, the width of which at the 

 base is far greater than the distance between the outer edge and the 

 the cutting edge of the mandible ; nostrils concealed by plumes ; 

 the chin angle at the base of the lower mandible reaches a good 

 deal further forwards than the nasal plumes ; wings moderately 

 pointed, but the difference between the primaries and secondaries 

 is only equal to about three-quarters the length of the culmen ; 

 tarsus hardly equal to the posterior outer toe with claw, which 

 again is distinctly longer than its anterior fellow ; plumage barred 

 and spotted. Only two closely allied species of this genus confined 

 to eastern and southern Africa have been described. 



