ORDER SCANSORES. 511 



the manners of some species vary considerably. There are 

 some which do not climb, although their organization might 

 lead us to believe they did ; but, on the contrary, they live 

 on the ground, or in the rocks. 



The Picus Viridis is the most common species in Europe, 

 where it is well known, under various names, derived from 

 its colour, cry, or habits. It usually abides in the forests, 

 which it causes to re-echo with its harsh and piercing cries, 

 resembling the words tiacacan, tiacacan, which are heard at 

 a considerable distance and which it particularly utters when 

 flying. Beside this, its usual cry, it has a love-note, which 

 in some sort resembles a noisy and continued burst of laugh- 

 ter, repeated thirty or forty times in succession. It has also 

 another very different and plaintive cry, which the peasants 

 in some places imagine to announce the approach of rain. 



Its flight is by springs and bounds. It plunges, rises, and 

 traces undulating semicircles in the air. It can, however, 

 sustain itself for a long time, for it will cross considerable 

 spaces of open land, to pass from one forest to another, and it 

 never fails to mark its arrival by its habitual cry. In spring 

 and summer, and seldom but in these seasons, it is found on 

 the ground, a habit which the other European woodpeckers 

 do not possess, and which arises from its taste for ants, on 

 which it then feeds ; it awaits them on their passage, couch- 

 ing its long tongue in the little path which is nearest to the 

 ant hill, and which they are accustomed to pursue in file : 

 when it finds its tongue covered with these insects, it retires 

 to swallow them. If the cold or the rain keeps them, in a 

 state of lethargy or repose, in their retreat, this woodpecker 

 goes to the ant hill itself, opens it with his feet and bill, and 

 presently devours the ants at his ease : he also swallows the 

 chrysalids. In other seasons he continually climbs trees, 

 striking them with redoubled blows of his bill, which may be 

 heard at a very considerable distance, and easily counted. This 

 is the time in which the bird may be approached most easily ; 



