380 



SCANSOKES. BIRDS. 



curious species to which we must briefly allude. One 

 of these is the Phillip Island Parrot, which is believed 

 to be now peculiar to the small island whose name it 

 bears, and even there it is getting very scarce. Its plum- 

 age is brown above; the head and back of the neck 

 are gray ; the cheeks, throat, and chest, are yellow, the 

 former tinged with red; the rump, belly, and under 

 tail-coverts are deep red, and the tail-feathers are 

 banded with orange and brown. The structure of the 

 tongue is peculiar ; it is furnished with a small horny 

 scoop on the under side of the tip, which is supposed 

 to be of service to the bird in feeding upon the nectar 

 of certain flowers of which it is very fond. The upper 

 mandible is much prolonged. 



THE NEW ZEALAND NESTOE (Nestor hypopoliux) 

 is very similar to the preceding, but has a somewhat 

 shorter upper mandible, and differs in some particulars 

 of its colouring. It feeds upon fruits, berries, and roots, 

 and is frequently caught and tamed by the natives, 

 when it learns to speak with great facility. 



PECQUET'S DASYPTILE (Dasyptilus Pecquetii) an 

 inhabitant of New South Wales, is another singular 

 species, having the basal portion of the bill much 

 straighter than in the other parrots, and the upper 

 mandible somewhat suddenly hooked, so that the form 

 of the bill resembles that prevailing amongst the rapa- 

 cious birds. The cere, also, is greatly developed, as in 

 the birds of prey, and the nostrils are placed close to 

 its margin. The cheeks, the top of the head, and the 

 upper part of the neck, are wholly or partially naked ; 

 the cheeks bearing only scattered hairs, and the head 

 being sparingly clothed with setaceous feathers. The 

 general colour of the plumage, which is of a rigid tex- 

 ture, is black, but the greater wing-coverts, the outer 

 webs of the secondary quills, the upper tail-coverts, and 

 the whole lower surface below the breast, are of a fine 

 crimson. It is a large species, measuring rally twenty 

 inches in length. 



THE KAKAPO (Strigops Tiabroptilus) is perhaps the 

 most singular of all the Psittacidae, from the remark- 

 able resemblance which it presents to an owl in its 

 general aspect and in the nature of its plumage. It is 

 an inhabitant of New Zealand and of the neighbouring 

 islands, and is strictly nocturnal in its habits, passing the 

 day concealed in holes under the roots of trees, and 

 coming forth at night to seek the roots which constitute 

 its favourite food. The habits of this bird are strictly 

 terrestrial, its wings being very short, and its power of 

 flight small ; on the ground, however, it runs with great 

 facility, and forms tracks, in the places which it fre- 

 quents, of about a foot broad, and so exactly like 

 ordinary footpaths, that when first seen they led to the 

 suspicion that natives were residing in the vicinity. 

 The cry of this bird is a hoarse croak, and is compared 

 by the natives to that of a species of owl inhabiting the 

 same country. They also say that great numbers of 

 Kakapos assemble together and pass the winter in large 

 caves, and that, at the time of their assembling and dis- 

 persion, they exert then- voices to such an extent as to 

 produce a noise that is perfectly deafening. They breed 

 in the holes which they ordinarily inhabit, lining the 

 bottom with a little fern, and lay two or three eggs. 

 The Kakapo is a solitary and not very abundant bird ; 



and since the introduction of cats into New Zealand its 

 numbers have decreased so greatly, that there is some 

 reason to fear that it will speedily become almost 

 extinct. 



It is a moderately large species, and is covered with 

 a thick soft plumage, resembling in its texture that of 

 the owls and other nocturnal birds; and, like these, it 

 has a perfectly noiseless flight. The general colour of 

 the plumage is a grayish-green, darker on the upper 

 surface, where it is mottled with spots and zigzag lines 

 of black ; the lower surface is black, marked with deli- 

 cate, undulated, dusky lines. The eyes are of consider- 

 able size and surrounded below by a facial disc of slender 

 feathers, which partially conceal the base of the bill, 

 exactly as in the owls. With this singular bird we take 

 leave of the Parrot family. 



FAMILY III. PICID^E. 



The birds of this family, which are commonly known 

 as Woodpeckers, have a rather long straight bill, of 

 which the tip is commonly obtuse or truncated, and the 

 sides marked with a longitudinal ridge. Their feet, as 

 already described (see page 372, and fig. 120), are organ- 

 ized for running upon the bark of trees, being furnished 

 with long, spreading toes, armed at the extremity with 

 strong, sharp, curved claws, which enable them readily 

 to seize any small inequality of the bark ; whilst the 

 tarsus is so placed as to form a sort of sole which gives 

 the bird great firmness in its ordinary position. Both 

 the tarsi and toes are clothed above with scaly plates. 

 The tail also is of service to most of the Woodpeckers 

 in their climbing ; it is rather short, but composed of 

 stiff feathers, which are pointed at the extremity, and 

 generally more or less worn away at this part. 



These birds, especially the more typical species (for 

 some, as we shall see, differ from the rest in their habits), 

 reside in the woods and forests of both hemispheres, 

 principally in the warmer regions, and run with great 

 activity and in every direction upon the trunks and 

 branches of trees, searching for the insects which con- 

 stitute the greater part of their food. With this object 

 in view they are constantly tapping the bark with their 

 bills, in order to discover soft or rotten places which 

 may be inhabited by bark-feeding insects ; on meeting 

 with a suspicious spot (and they are probably seldom 

 mistaken), they immediately dig vigorously into the 

 bark and seize the insect or larva. The capture of the 

 smaller insects at any rate is effected by means of the 

 tongue, which, with its appurtenances, exhibits a beau- 

 tiful modification to adapt it for this purpose. The 

 byoid bone, which supports the tongue, has its posterior 

 branches enormously elongated and continued in the 

 form of slender springs, which, passing under the skull, 

 are carried up round the back and over the top of the 

 ead, until their extremities reach to the right nostril. 

 Each of these elongated bony springs is accompanied 

 throughout by a slender muscle, by the contraction of 

 which its bow is shortened, and the tongue is pushed 

 out. Its retractation is effected by means of another 

 ^air of muscles. The tip of the tongue itself is horny, 

 and furnished with several small barbs directed back- 

 wards ; this arrangement is supposed to facilitate the 



