Ground Woodpeckers and Flickers 589 



climbing ; in the second group the tail is soft and rounded and not at all spiny. 

 To the former belong the typical Woodpeckers with mainly arboreal habits, while 

 the latter group includes only the diminutive Piculets mainly of South America. 



African Ground Woodpecker. According to Hargitt, nearly half the genera 

 and considerably more than half the species are distinguished by the fact that the 

 feathers of the neck are ordinary ; that is, the neck is not perceptibly compressed 

 or narrowed in comparison with the head. We may appropriately begin the con- 

 sideration of these with the remarkable Ground Woodpecker (Geocolaptes 

 olivaceus) of South Africa, the sole representative of its genus. It is a small bird, 

 not over ten inches long, the general color being olive-brown, mottled with dirty 

 yellow, the male having the rump, breast, and abdomen crimson, as well as a 

 crimson mustache, these parts being brown in the female; the tail is dark 

 brown, barred with yellow, the under side being glossed with golden yellow. 

 "This singular bird," says Layard, "presents a remarkable instance of the adap- 

 tation of creatures to the locality wherein their lot is cast. Though belonging 

 to the Woodpecker family, it never pecks wood, but bores its way into banks of 

 rivers, sides of hills, or the walls of mud buildings, in search of its prey, and for 

 a home for its young. It also seeks for food on the ground, in the same manner 

 as the Golden-winged Woodpecker of North America; its flight likewise struck 

 me as very similar. It excavates a hole, sometimes several feet in depth, in 

 which to deposit its eggs, which are pure white, and from three to five in num- 

 ber. Families seem to keep in company until the arrival of the breeding season 

 separates them. They feed together and roost together in some deserted hole, 

 while their loud, harsh cries, as they call to each other, may be heard for a con- 

 siderable distance." These birds rarely if ever perch in trees, but are often noted 

 climbing about the face of perpendicular rocks and there searching for their food 

 as other species search a tree-trunk. 



Flickers. The next in order are the Flickers (Colaptes), a large group of 

 nearly twenty closely related, perhaps some of them interbreeding, forms, rang- 

 ing throughout North and Central America, and South America as far as Chile 

 and Patagonia, and occurring also in Cuba. They are handsome birds, mostly 

 between eleven and fourteen inches in length, the general color above being 

 brownish, barred with black, except on the rump and upper tail-coverts, which 

 are more or less white, and pale vinaceous yellowish or whitish below, marked 

 with roundish or heart-shaped spots of black, and a large black crescent on the 

 breast; the outer surface of the quills and the upper surface of the tail-feathers 

 is black, the shafts of these feathers being either bright yellow or red, these 

 colors showing also on the under surfaces of the wings and tail. THe best-known 

 species is the Common Flicker (C. auratus}, 1 also called the Golden-winged 

 Woodpecker, Yellow-hammer, High-hole, Wake-up, etc., the latter from certain 

 of its notes which resemble the words wake-up, wake-up. It belongs to that 

 section of the genus in which the shafts, etc., are golden yellow, while the back 



1 Mr. Bangs has recently separated the form found in the Northern states under the name of 

 C. auratus luteus, on the ground of its large size and somewhat paler colors, but the differences 

 are not great. 



