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 was 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. (Picaria). 
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 ani), 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 (7yogonide) 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 anest 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. 
