THE WOODPECKERS. 229 



nest in rocks or hollow trees. Our only parrot is the Caro- 

 lina parroquet {Conurus CaroUnensis, Fig. 268), whicli is 

 confined to Florida. It formerly extended to the Great 

 Lakes and to New York, but is nearly exterminated. About 

 three hundred and fifty species are scattered through trop- 

 ical countries, Australia and South America being espe- 

 cially favored by these gorgeous birds. The ground parrot 

 of New Zealand does not fly, all the others being good fliers. 



Order 10. Picarice (Woodpeckers, etc.). — This is a some- 

 what miscellaneous group of birds, comprising the wood- 

 peckers, the cuckoos, and allies, with the swifts and hum- 

 ming-birds, which connect the preceding groups with the 

 Passerine or singing birds. From the latter the Picarice 

 commonly differ in the form of the sternum, in the less 

 developed vocal apparatus, there being no more than three 

 pairs of separate muscles, so that the birds are not musi- 

 cal; as well as in the nature of the toes and wing- and tail- 

 feathers. 



The woodpeckers usually have pointed, stiff tail-feathers, 

 and the bill is straight and strong. The tongue is long, 

 flat, horny, and barbed at the end, and can be usually 

 darted out with great force, so that the bird can make holes 

 in the bark of trees and draw out with its barbed tongue 

 the larvae of insects boring under the bark; in this way 

 these birds render us signal service. The tongue, as in all 

 vertebrates, is supported by the hyoid apparatus, especially 

 by two cartilaginous appendages to the hyoid bone, called 

 '' the horns." These in the woodpeckers, when fully de- 

 veloped, are curved into wide arches, each horn making a 

 loop down the neck, and thence bending upward, sliding 

 around the skull, and even down on the forehead. Through 

 a peculiar muscular arrangement of the sheaths in which 

 the horns slide, they can be retracted down on the occiput, 

 and work as springs on the base of the tongue, forcing it 

 out with great velocity. Lindahl has noticed in some Euro- 

 pean woodpeckers an unsymmetric arrangement of tho 

 horns as indicated in Fig. 269. 



