WOODPECKER. 337 



1 HE bill of the Woodpecker is for the most part strait, strong, 

 angular,* and cuneated at the end. 



Nostrils covered with reflected bristles. 



Tongue very long, slender, cylindric, bony, hard, and jagged at 

 the end, missile. 



Toes placed two forwards and two backwards, two or three 

 species excepted. 



Tail consisting of ten stiff, sharp-pointed feathers. 



The grand characteristic of this Genus is the tongue, which in no 

 bird is similar, the Wryneck excepted ; whose other characters, how- 

 ever, differ too widely to give it place in this class. The muscles 

 necessary to the motion of it are singular and worthy of notice, 

 affording the animal means of darting it forwards the whole of the 

 length, and drawing it again within the mouth at will.f 



The chief food of birds of this kind is, we believe, insects, 

 though authors inform us, that some of the species will occasionally 

 eat fruits and vegetables: in general they make use of a hole in a tree 

 wherein to deposit the eggs ; and it is affirmed, that they can, and do 

 make holes in sound wood for that purpose ; yet others doubt the 

 circumstance, and have told us, that it is only in trees beginning to 

 decay; and which they perforate for the twofold purpose of procuring 

 the larvae of beetles, or other insects, and of forming an occa- 

 sional habitation. 



None of the Woodpecker tribe has yet been found in New-Holland. 

 In a very ingenious paper by the Rev. R. Sheppard, in the Linncean 

 Transactions, vol.12, p. 517. the received opinion, that the use of 

 the Woodpecker Tribe having two toes placed before and two behind, 



* The Gold-winged Species, and three or four similar ones excepted ; in these the bill is 

 bent, and angular only on the top. f See Ray on the Creation, 143. Derham't 



Phys. Theol. 342. Note a. Will. Orn. 156. t. 21. 



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