144 AVES. 



ORDER III. 



SCANSORIJE. 



This order is composed of those birds whose external toe is di- 

 rected backwards like the thumb, by which conformation they are 

 the better enabled to support the weight of their bodies, and of which 

 certain genera take advantage in clinging to and climbing upon 

 trees. It is from this that they have received the common name of 

 Climbing Birds, which in strictness is not applicable to all of them, 

 as there are many true Climbers which by the disposition of their 

 toes cannot belong to this order, instances of which we have already 

 seen in the Creeper and Nuthatch. 



The Scansorise usually nestle in the hollows of old trees; their 

 powers of flight are middling; their food, like that of the Passerinae, 

 consists of insects or fruit, in proportion as their beak is more or 

 less stout; some of them, the Woodpeckers for instance, have pecu- 

 liar means for obtaining it. 



GALBULA, Briss. 



The Jacamars are closely allied to the Kingfishers by their elongated sharp- 

 pointed beak, the upper ridge of which is angular, and by their short feet, 

 the anterior toes of which are almost wholly united; these toes, however, 

 are not precisely the same as those of the Kingfishers; their plumage more- 

 over is not so smooth, and always has a metallic lustre. They are solitary 

 birds, that live in wet forests, feed on insects, and build on low branches. 

 The American species have a longer and perfectly straight beak. 



Picus, Lin. 



The Woodpeckers are well characterized by their long, straight, angular 

 beak, the end of which is compressed into a wedge, and fitted for split- 

 ing the bark of trees; by their slender tongue, armed near the tip with spines 

 that curve backwards, which by the action of the elastic horns of the hyoid 

 bone can be thrust far out of the beak, and by their tail, composed of ten 

 quills with stiff and elastic stems, which acts as a prop in supporting them 

 while they are climbing. They are Climbers par excellence : they wander 

 over trees in every direction, striking the bark with their beaks, and insin- 

 uating their long tongue into its cracks and crevices to obtain the larvae of 

 insects, on which they feed. Fearful and wary, they pass most of their time 

 in a solitary manner, but at a certain season they may frequently be heard 

 r c ^ 



