6oo ' The Roller-like Birds 



and may go in four or five inches before turning downward; the depth varies 

 from eight to thirty inches, the lower portion being enlarged into a chamber 

 some six inches in width. The usual number of eggs is three to five, but six 

 and even eight have been reported. 



Piculets. The second of the two groups into which, as already pointed 

 out, it is possible to separate the Woodpeckers, comprises only the Piculets, 

 or those with the soft tails. They are diminutive birds, between three and 

 five inches in length, and are most abundant in South America, but curiously 

 enough they also reappear in the Orient, and a single species inhabits the 

 Cameroons and Gaboon country of West Africa. How they came to be so 

 widely separated is difficult to say, since no fossil representatives have thus far 

 come to light, but in .any event this distribution points to the considerable 

 antiquity of the group. Aside from the flexible tails, they are distinguished by 

 a rather soft, lax plumage throughout, while the nostrils are covered with dense 

 plumes and bristles, and, according to Parker, the palatal structure is of a less 

 developed type than in the typical Woodpeckers. They are also said to climb 

 less like Woodpeckers, but perch after the manner of true perching birds, yet 

 in the manner of their food and nesting habits they remain true Woodpeckers. 



About forty-three species are recognized as belonging to this group, and 

 these are disposed among four, or possibly five, genera, as there are some dif- 

 ferences of opinion as to whether certain of the Oriental species should be 

 referred to the same genus with the South American forms. The American 

 genus (Picumnus) is the principal one, embracing thirty-five species, and 

 Hargett, Sharpe, and Blanford are unable to detect any generic difference be- 

 tween these and the two Oriental species, "the resemblance being carried even 

 to the pattern of the tail." Some authorities would place the latter in the 

 genus Vivia, but be this as it may, the differences, if they exist, are but slight. 

 Although the American forms are so numerous, very little has been recorded 

 of their habits beyond the fact that they are thorough Woodpeckers. The color 

 of the plumage is largely olive-green, rufous, or gray, often more or less spotted 

 or barred with black below, and showing yellow or red on the head. The 

 species called the Spotted Piculet (Picumnus (or Vivia) innominatus), which 

 ranges all through the Burmese provinces, and parts of the Malay peninsula 

 to Sumatra and northern Borneo, is a bird about four inches long, olive or 

 yellowish olive above, with the chin and throat white and the abdomen pale 

 yellow, all with large black spots. This bird, according to various authorities, 

 frequents tangled thickets of brushwood or bamboo, or dead and fallen trees 

 in damp places, and feeds on insects. "It breeds in April or May," says Mr. 

 Blanford, "making a hole precisely like that of a typical Woodpecker, some- 

 times in the stem, sometimes in a branch of a tree, and lays usually three eggs, 

 oval, white, and very glossy." 



In Haiti and Santo Domingo occurs a monotypic genus (Nesoctites) which 

 differs from the last in the larger size, a more slender and curved bill, longer 

 upper tail-coverts, and longer posterior toe. The single species (AT. micromegas} 

 is olive-green above, brownish on the wings, and pale yellowish below, where it 



