144 



On the salmon streams the Kingfishers are regarded with strong 

 disfavour and the guardians are usually busy reducing their number with 

 gun and trap on every possible occasion, and even offer bounties upon their 

 heads and nests. How far this is justified is questionable. In many of 

 these streams the fish have little food other than the smaller of their own 

 species. The large fish, except the spring run of breeders, are all busy 

 eating the small ones. The fry evidently live on micro-organisms and 

 plankton, the fingerlings upon the fry, the parr upon the fingerlings, and 

 so on. The fingerlings are those taken by the Kingfishers. Now if the 

 final number of adult salmon depends on the fingerling, if the fingerling 

 is the critical stage in the salmon's life beyond which its chances for 

 survival are greatly increased, the Kingfisher can possibly commit appre- 

 ciable depredation; but if, on the other hand, this critical point occurs later 

 during the sea-life of the fish for instance the effect of the taking of even 

 a considerable number of fingerlings will be negligible. At any rate it 

 will take several Kingfishers to equal the damage done by one comparatively 

 small fish in the waters frequented by the salmon. It would seem, therefore, 

 that the evil done by the Kingfisher can easily be exaggerated. 



Order Pici. Woodpeckers. 



The world-wide order Pici is a rather heterogeneous division including 

 numerous subdivisions, and there is little uniformity of opinion as to their 

 exact relations. In Canada there is only one family of the order Picidce, 

 the Woodpeckers. 



FAMILY PICID^E. WOODPECKERS. 



General Description. The Woodpeckers are an easily recognized family. They have 

 either three or four toes ending in well-hooked claws for clinging to the rough bark of 

 trees. Like the Cuckoos, but two are directed forward. In one group, the Three-toed 

 Woodpeckers, one of the hind toes is absent. The bill is straight, stout, and chisel-shaped 

 at the tip (Figure 41, p. 25). The tail is well developed; not remarkably long but stout 

 and ending in stiff bristles that are commonly worn and frayed by pressure against rough 

 bark. 



Distinctions. Feet, bill, and tail characters make reliable distinctions. 



Field Marks. Tree-climbing habits; and flight by series of quick wing-strokes with 

 slight pauses between, causing a waved course like a succession of festoons. 



Nesting. In holes excavated in trees or stubs. 



The Woodpeckers are well known for their ability to cling to per- 

 pendicular or overhanging surfaces. The stout, chisel-shaped bill is 

 admirably adapted to drilling into wood whence the larvae of borers or other 

 insects are extracted. The tongue is modified into a long, extensible 

 spear furnished with a sharp point and armed with minute barbs to assist 

 in holding the impaled prey and withdrawing it from the wood. The hyoid 

 or tongue bones are so long that in the normal position of rest they wind 

 over the base of the skull along the crown and in some species penetrate 

 the nostrils beneath the bill-sheath and finally rest their ends near the tip 

 of the bill. As a further aid, large salivary glands secrete a sticky fluid for 

 the tongue, to which small insects stick and are caught as with birdlime. 

 A few species, for example the Sapsuckers, have the tip of the tongue frayed 

 out into a sort of brush that is evidently used in gathering up sap. 



