MESOPICUS 141 



Iris dark brown ; bill bluish-black ; legs and feet greenish-ash. 



Length about 8-5 ; wing 4'30 ; tail 2-75 ; culmen 1-15 ; tarsus 

 0-75. 



The female differs from the male in having an entirely slaty - 

 grey head without any crimson ; the crimson wash on the abdomen 

 is hardly noticeable. It is also slightly smaller (i.e., wing 4-0; 

 culmen O85). 



Distribution. The Olive Woodpecker is spread over the southern 

 and eastern parts of South Africa from the neighbourhood of Cape 

 Town to Natal, Zululand, and the Transvaal, but although it has 

 been obtained in Nyasaland and Angola it has not yet been met 

 with in Ehodesia, so far as I am aware. 



The following are localities : Cape Colony Cape and Stellen- 

 bosch div. (S. A. Mus.), George (Atmore), Knysna (Victorin), 

 Stockenstroom (Atmore), King William's Town (Trevelyan in Bt. 

 Mus.), Port St. John's (S. A. Mus.) ; Natal Newcastle (Butler), 

 Echo we (Woodward) ; Transvaal Lydenburg (Ayres), Pretoria 

 and Marico (Barratt). 



Habits. This Woodpecker does not differ from others of the 

 same family in habits ; it is found only in thick wood singly or 

 in pairs ; it feeds on insects and their larvae, which it extracts 

 from under the bark or from the wood of trees ; in this it is helped 

 by its long and very extensile tongue, which is horny at the tip and 

 provided with barbs for withdrawing the grubs from their hiding 

 places. The eggs, which are laid in a hole in a tree probably 

 excavated by the bird itself, are white and shiny and somewhat 

 truncated at the obtuse end ; they measure about 0'85 x 0*67. 

 According to Levaillant both sexes share in the incubation. 



Subfamily II. 



Tail feathers twelve in number (outer pair very short), all soft 

 and rounded, not stiff and spiny as in other Woodpeckers ; tail long, 

 equal to the longest primary, more than three-quarters the length of 

 the wing ; nostrils not concealed by plumes but almost closed up by 

 membrane. 



Only the single genus is contained in the subfamily. 



