KEEL-BREASTED BIRDS. 271 



that country, these birds have developed a taste for them, and in con- 

 sequence are in a fair way of being exterminated. This habit was first 

 noticed in 1868, and the wound wab always on the back in front of the 

 hips. In one station on the Matataapu, nineteen out of a flock of 

 twenty rams were killed by these parrots in a month. In another 

 flock of three hundred and ten young, two hundred and five were killed 

 in five months. Men are now employed to kill them. 



VALUE. Parrot feathers are used in trade, and the nestor is eaten. 



Order XI. Woodpeckers, etc. 



The Yellow-billed Cuckoo (Coccyzus Americanus) is 

 found throughout the whole extent of North America, 

 from Canada to Florida, and from the Atlantic to the Pa- 

 cific. They are twelve inches in length. They pair in 

 May, the rude nest* of twigs being often placed in an 

 apple-tree. The eggs, generally three or four, are of a 

 greenish blue. The female often feigns lameness in order 

 to divert attention from the nest. 



The Ani, or tick-eater (Crotophaga am), of Florida, and 

 south to Brazil, is an allied form, and remarkable for its 

 thin, arched, sharply-curved bill. They may with many 

 others be termed guardian birds, as they are often seen 

 clinging to the ears, tail, horns, and hair of cattle, carefully 

 catching ticks and other parasites. 



The Trogons (Trogomdat) are found in North and 

 South America, India, and Africa. The Mexican trogon 



* The Old World cuckoos are remarkable for their habit of slyly 

 depositing their eggs in the nests of other birds, thus shirking the 

 work of incubation. In Australia they are often placed in a nest hardly 

 large enough for one, and the knowledge of this seems to be instinctive 

 in the young, for as soon as hatched it tumbles out the young and eggs 

 that really belong there by pushing under them, and thus receives all 

 the food-supply. The English, nearly all the Australian, and the 

 Indian black cuckoos have this habit, the latter placing their eggs 

 in the nests of crows. An allied bird of Africa, the honey-guide, preys 

 upon the nests of honey-bees, and is protected by a remarkable cover- 

 ing of skin and feathers, the former so thick that a pin can hardly be 

 thrust through it. 



