562 PICARIAN BIRDS. 



it is not often seen, and, indeed, its presence is generally to be detected by its 

 tapping on the trees, or when flying from one tree to another, at which times the 

 black-and-white bars on the extended wings render it rather conspicuous. It 

 often sits on a branch horizontally, or runs along the under side like a nuthatch. 

 It has the habit, in the breeding-season, of making a drumming noise on the bark 

 of trees, which can be heard for a great distance, and is evidently a call from one 

 bird to the other, as its note is so weak that the sound of it would not travel far. 

 This drumming is performed on the smaller branches of a poplar tree at a great 

 height from the ground, and the nest-hole is also often drilled in the small 

 branches of a poplar, near the top of the tree, making it a matter of some 

 difficulty and danger to procure the nest. The range of this woodpecker is almost 

 the same as that of the preceding species, and, like it, it is represented in North 

 Africa ami in Asia by allied species. Another species found in most parts of 

 Europe, and supposed to have occurred once in England, is the white-backed 

 woodpecker (I), leuconotus). As its name implies it has a white back, with a 

 black mantle, a red crown, and broad black streaks on the flanks. The female, 

 as in most other species of this genus, lias a black head. Its range extern Is across 

 Northern Asia to Manchuria ami Corea Generally placed in the same genus as 

 the last, the middle spotted woodpecker (]>. urn/ ins) is by some regarded as the 

 representative of a distinct genus (JDendrocoptes), on account of its differently 

 shaped beak, and its distinct sty''- of plumage. Cnknown in England, this species 

 is distributed over the greater part of Europe, as far cast as the Caucasus: but 

 is replaced in Asia Minor and Persia by St. John's woodpecker (B. sancti- 



jll/lll n H is). 



Three-Toed Agreeing with three other Indian genera in the absence of the 



Woodpeckers. nrs t ^oe, fc ae seV en species of three-toed woodpeckers are rather 

 densely feathered birds, with an Arctic or Alpine habitat. Thus we find them 

 distributed over the- high north of America, Europe, and Asia, occurring only 

 elsewhere on mountainous areas, where the same temperature is experienced, 

 as, for instance, on the Rocky Mountains as far south as Mexico, the mountains 

 of Germany and Switzerland, and similar localities in Asia, including the mountains 

 of China, but not occurring in the Himalaya. One of the best known species is 

 the European three-toed woodpecker (Picoides tridactylus), a bird of moderate 

 size, measuring rather more than 8 inches in length, and easily recognised by the 

 yellow head and white breast of the male. 



Pigmy Merely mentioning that the African cardinal-woodpeckers (Den- 



woodpeckers. tropicus) are small-sized birds, differing from European forms by 

 their shorter tail and rather longer legs, while most of them have yellow shafts to 

 the quills of the wings, and the wing markedly rounded, we pass on to the pigmy 

 woodpeckers (/y mji /lictts). As their name implies, these are birds of small size, 

 and generally of brown plumage, with white liars, while most of the species, instead 

 of a red head, have a little ornamental tuft of red feathers on the side of the 

 crown. The pigmy woodpeckers have also a more pointed wing than their allies, 

 and their distribution is peculiar, since they are found in Senegambia and North- 

 Eastern Africa where they are very rare, and then the genus reappears in India, 

 where it is by no means uncommon, and thence extends through the Burmese 



