TEE INTELLECTUAL OBSERVER. 



JUNE, 1867. 



BRITISH WOODPECKERS. 



BY G. EDWARD MASSEE. 



( With a Coloured Plate.) 



The group Scansores, or climbers, is represented in the Britisli 

 Isles by three families, which include seventeen species, out of 

 which eight only can be considered indigenous ; the remaining 

 nine being merely visitors of rare occurrence. The genus Picus 

 contains but three true British species, though six others have 

 been added to the list of British birds, on the grounds of one 

 or two of each having been capL red or seen here. 



The places most frequente L by woodpeckers are forest 

 districts, where, amongst the interstices of the bark, and the 

 decayed portions of the trees, 1 hey find a constant supply of 

 insects and their larvae, which constitute the principal part of 

 their food, and for the capture of which their whole frame is 

 admirably adapted. The haemal spines, which in most of the 

 vertebrata are distinct, are coalesced in birds into a single 

 bone, called the sternum, or breastbone, which is subject to 

 various modifications in different families. Birds whose food 

 is principally taken on the wing, or who have to fly long 

 distances to procure it, have in general a broad breastbone, 

 furnished with a prominent keel or ridge descending from the 

 median line of its under surface, to which the pectoral, or wing- 

 muscles, are attached. In the present genus, whose food is 

 principally procured in forests, and whose flight is rarely 

 extended beyond the distance from one tree to another, the 

 crest, or central ridge of the breastbone, is remarkably small. 

 Their powerful toes, two of which are directed ^forwards and 

 two backwards, are furnished with large, deeply curved claws, 

 by which they are enabled, with the assistance of their stiff and 

 pointed tail feathers, to move along the trunks and branches 

 of trees in all directions. The beak is long, straight, and 

 tapering from base to apex. The tongue is retractile, and the 

 tip is armed with barb-like bristles, by which their insect prey 

 is impaled. 



VOL. xi. — no. v. Y 



