THE WOODPECKERS. 



qest in rocks or hollow t rees. ( ' | Caro- 



lina parroquet (< . I Unejisis, 1 . . which is 



confined t.» Florida. It formerly extei I 



Lakes and to New York, but is nearly exterminate '1. About 

 three hundred and li; attered tin I rop- 



l ;il countries, Australia and South America bein< 

 cially favored by ; - birds. The ground parrot 



<•. New Zealand does n< >r fly,all the others dfliers. 



Order 10. /' \\ peckers, etc.). — This is;, 



what miscellaneous group of birds, com ; the w 



peckers, the cuckoos, and allies, with the swifts and hum- 

 ming-birds, which connect tin- preceding grou] i the 

 Passerine or singing birds. From the latter tin- Picaria 

 commonly differ in the form of the sternum, in the less 

 developed vocal apparatus, there being no more than three 

 pairs of separate mug o that the birds are not musi- 

 cal; as well as in the nature of 1 - ami wing- and tail- 



The woodpeckers usually have pointed, stiff tail-feath 

 and the bill is straight and strong. Tl gjue is L 



Hat, horny, ami barbed at the end, and can be usi 

 darted out with great I . > that the an make h 



in the bark of trees and draw out with its barbed t" 

 the larvae of insects boring under the hark: in this way 

 these birds render us signal servi <■. The tongue, as in all 

 vertebrates, is supported by the hyoid apparatus, 

 by two cartilaginous appendages to the hyoid b 



"the horns." These in the w Ipei . when ft 



vcloped, are curved into wide arches, each horn maki 

 loop down tin- neck, and thence bending upward, sliding 

 around the skull, and even down on the forehead. Through 

 a peculiar muscular arrangement • sheaths in which 



the horns slide, they ran he retracted down en the occiput, 

 and work as Bprings on tie of the tongue, forcing it 



out with great velocity. Lindahlhasi 

 pean woodpeckers an unsymmetrio arrangement of the 

 horns as indicated in Fig. 269. 



