80 THE WOODPECKERS 



or with three forward and one the other way. 

 The owls have a reversible outer toe, and per- 

 haps the woodpeckers did also before it became 

 permanently reversed. 



That this is exactly what had happened is curi- 

 ously confirmed. There are a few woodpeckers 

 in this country which have but three toes. They 



are the only North 

 American land birds 

 with less than four toes 

 (though many sea and 

 shore birds have but 



Foot of Three-toed Woodpecker. three) _ Compare ^ 



picture with a four-toed woodpecker's foot. One 

 toe is gone completely, when or how no one can 

 tell. But in some way the first toe, the thumb, 

 the one we always begin to count from, has dis- 

 appeared. The one left is the reversed fourth 

 toe, as we know by the number of joints in it. 

 Undoubtedly this woodpecker needed a hind toe, 

 but he must have needed a longer, stronger one 

 than his natural first toe. A toe of the right 

 length was supplied by turning one of the front 

 toes back, and the short hind toe in some way 

 disappeared. 



This may seem a roundabout way to show 

 that a woodpecker's foot is a pair of nippers. 

 First we studied nippers till we found out that 



