354 . ELEMENTARY ZOOLOGY 



The cuckoos and kingfishers (Coccyges). The 



cuckoos and kingfishers are regarded as constituting an 

 order, Coccyges, a small group whose members are with- 

 out any definite bond of union. Only ten species of North 

 American birds belong to this order. The yellow-billed 

 and black-billed cuckoos (Coccyzus] or " rain-crows " are 

 long-tailed, slender, lustrous drab birds, which lay their 

 eggs in the nests of others. They are notable for their 

 peculiar rolling call. On the plains and hills of California 

 and the southwest lives the road-runner or chaparral cock 

 (Geococcyx calif or ma mis], a strange bird belonging to the 

 cuckoo family. It is nearly two feet long, of which length 

 the tail makes half. These birds run so rapidly that a 

 horse is little more than able to keep up with them. They 

 feed on fruits, various reptiles, insects, etc. The one 

 common kingfisher of this country, the belted kingfisher 

 (Ceryle alcyon), a thick-set, heavy-billed, ashy blue-and- 

 white bird, is familiar along streams. As it flies swiftly 

 along it gives its rattling cry. It nests in deep holes in 

 the stream-banks, and lays six or eight crystal-white 

 spheroidal eggs. 



The woodpeckers (Pici). The familiar woodpeckers 

 and sap-suckers compose a well-defined order, Pici, which 

 is represented in North America by twenty-five species. 

 The bill of the woodpecker is stout and strong, usually 

 straight, fitted for driving or boring into wood ; the tongue 

 is long, sharp-pointed, and barbed, fitted for spearing 

 insects. The feet have two toes turned forward and two 

 backward; the tail-feathers are stiff and sharp-pointed 

 and help support the bird as it clings to the vertical side 

 of a tree-trunk or branch (fig. 139). The food of most 

 woodpeckers consists chiefly of insects, usually wood- 

 boring larvae (grubs). These birds do much good by 

 destroying many noxious insect pests of trees. A few 

 species, the true sap-suckers, probably feed on the sap of 



