Order III. PICI. 

 Family PlCmffi. 



Subfamily PICIN^E. 



Genus DRYOCOPUS. 



Picus apud Linnaeus, Syst. Nat. i. p. 173 (1766). 



Dryocopus, Boie, Isis, 1826, p. 977. 



Dendrocopus apud C. L. Brehm, Isis, 1828, p. 1274. 



Carbonarius apud Kaup, Natiirl. Syst. p. 131 (1829). 



Dryotomus apud Swainson, Faun. Bor.-Am. Aves, p. 301 (1831). 



Dryopicos apud Malherbe, Mem. Acad. Metz, 1849, p. 320. 



Dryopicus apud Malherbe, Monogr. Pic. i. p. 31 (1861). 



It is with some hesitation that I have subdivided the Woodpeckers into four genera, and have 

 used the generic titles Dryocopus, Picus, Picoides, and Gecinus ; but after mature consideration 

 I have decided on taking this course. In the first place, it is no easy matter to decide what 

 the type of the genus Picus is. Professor Newton says he has no doubt that Dryocopus martins 

 should be looked on as the type ; but in this view I cannot concur. The older authors had no 

 idea whatever of types ; and all that one can do is to infer that if they had lived in these times 

 they would have constituted certain species types of the genera they made. It appears therefore 

 to me to be mere conjecture to say that because Linnaeus ranged the Great Black Woodpecker 

 foremost amongst the Picidse, or because Brisson did the same with the Green Woodpecker, these 

 authors meant those species to be the types of the genus. Under all the circumstances it seems 

 to me best to accept, as many authors have done, Picus major as the type of the genus Picus, and 

 to place the Great Black Woodpecker in the genus Dryocopus. 



This species, which is the sole representative of the genus, is a shy, rather wild bird, and 

 affects the denser forests — as a rule, those far away from human habitations. It climbs with ease 

 about the trunks of the trees, like the common Woodpeckers, and obtains its food, which 

 consists of insects of various kinds, chiefly by boring into the decayed portions of trees. Its 

 flight is heavy, though swift and undulating ; and its note is clear and loud. It excavates its 

 own nest-hole in the trunk of a tree, and deposits several pure-white glossy eggs. It has the bill 

 long, stout, conical, pentagonal, laterally bevelled at the tip so as to present an abrupt wedge-like 

 termination ; nostrils oblong, concealed by reversed bristly feathers ; wings long and wide, the 

 first quill short, the second shorter than the eighth and about equal to the ninth ; tail long, 

 wedge-shaped, the shafts very strong, the terminal portion stiff and deflected ; feet very short, 

 first toe very short, the second moderate in length and united at the base to the third, fourth 

 long and directed backwards, claws very large, curved, acute ; tongue vermiform, terminated by 

 a narrow, flat, horny point, which is ciliated with short reversed bristles, and extensile, as is 

 the case with all the Picinse. 



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