558 PICARIAN BIRDS. 



Malayan countries, also with eight species. The last-named genus is remarkable 

 for its large yellow or red crest. Lewis's woodpecker (Asyndesmus torquatus) is 

 an inhabitant of Western North America, extending into Arizona and Western Texas : 

 and is remarkable for the structure of the body-plumes of the under surface, these 

 being hairy in appearance, owing to the want of barbicules or hooklets to the web 

 of the feathers. Its habits are also somewhat peculiar ; and it is one of the few 

 species in which the colour of the male and female is exactly alike. Dr. Coiies 

 writes : " This is chiefly a bird of the vast forests that clothe most of our mountain 

 ranges with permanent verdure. My own experience with the bird in life is 

 confined to the vicinity of Fort Whipple in Arizona, where it is a very common 

 species — a bird of singular aspect, many of its habits are no less peculiar. One 

 seeing it for the first time would hardly take it for a woodpecker, unless he 

 happened to observe it clambering over the trunk of a tree, or tapping for insects, 

 in the manner peculiar to its tribe. When flying, the large, dark bird might rather 

 be mistaken for a crow-blackbird ; for although it sometimes swings itself from 

 one tree to another, in a long festoon, like other woodpeckers, its ordinary flight is 

 more firm and direct, and accomplished with regular wing-beats. It alights on 

 boughs, in the attitude of ordinary birds, more frequently than any other American 

 woodpecker, except the flicker, and, with the same exception, taps trees less 

 frequently than any." 

 Red-Headed The well - known North American red-headed woodpecker 



woodpeckers. (Melanerpes erythrocephalus) is a representative of a genus exclus- 

 ively American, and embracing thirty-three species, ranging from the United 

 States to Argentina. In habits these woodpeckers seem to resemble the 

 other members of the family, so that there is nothing particular to record 

 respecting them. In the British Museum there may, however, be seen an 

 illustration of the way in which one of these woodpeckers stores up acorns 

 supposed to be for its winter supply of food. A piece of pine-bark has been 

 pierced with a number of holes, drilled for the purpose of receiving the acorns. 

 The species to which this habit has been proved to belong is the white- 

 fronted red-headed woodpecker (M. formicivorus), inhabiting Central America, 

 from Mexico to Panama. 



Three species of this efenus are known, all of them North 

 Sap-Suckers. L ... - 



American and Central American in habitat ; one of them (Sphyropicus 



varius) also occurring in the West Indies. The genus does not possess the long 



extensile tongue of the other woodpeckers, sharing the want of this essential 



character with another North American genus (Xenopicus). Writing of the 



habits of the yellow-bellied sap-sucker (S. varius), Mr. F. Bolles observes: 



" I found a sap-sucker's ' orchard ' of about a dozen canoe-birches and red 



maples, most of which were dead, some decayed and fallen. The tree most 



recently tapped was a red maple about forty feet high, and two feet through 



at the butt. The drills made by the woodpeckers began at eighteen feet 



from the ground, and formed a girdle entirely round the trunk. This girdle 



contained over eight hundred punctures, and was almost three feet in height. In 



places the punctures or drills had run together, causing the bark to gape and show 



dry wood within. The upper holes alone yielded sap, and from this I inferred 



