IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER. g 



his tribe ; and Nature seems to have designed liim a distin- 

 guished characteristic in the superb carmine crest and bill ot 

 polished ivory with which she has ornamented him. His eye 



of the golden-winged, and including in a third the very minute species 

 which form Temminck's genus Picumnus, but which, I believe, will be 

 found to rank in a family somewhat different. Mr Swainson, again, in 

 following out the views which he holds regarding the affinities of living 

 beings, has formed five groups, — taking our present form as typical, under 

 the title Pirns ; that of the green woodpecker, under Chrysoptilus ; that 

 of the red-headed woodpecker, as Melanerpes ; the golden-wings, as 

 Colaptes ; and Malacolophus as the soft-crested Brazilian and Indian 

 species. Of these forms, the northern parts of America will contain 

 only three : two we have had occasion already to remark upon'; and the 

 third forms the subject of our author's present description — the most 

 powerful of the whole tribe, and showing all the forms and peculiarities 

 of the true woodpecker developed to the utmost. 



The Pici are very numerous, and are distributed over the whole world, 

 New Holland excepted ; America, however, including both continents, 

 may be termed the land of woodpeckers. Her vast and solitary forests 

 afford abundance to satisfy their various wants, and furnish a secluded 

 retirement from the inroads of cultivation. Next in number, I believe, 

 India and her islands are best stored ; then Africa, and lastly, Europe. 

 The numbers, however, are always greatest between the tropics, and 

 generally diminish as we recede from and approach temperate or cold 

 regions. They are mostly insectivorous ; a few species only feed occa- 

 sionally on different fruits and berries. The various Coleoptera, that 

 form their abodes in dead and decaying timber, and beneath their bark 

 and moss, with their eggs and large larvse, form an essential part of their 

 subsistence : for securing this prey, digging it out from their burrows in 

 the wood, and the peculiar mode of life incident to such pursuits, they 

 are most admirably adapted. The bill is strong and wedge-shaped ; 

 the neck possesses great muscularity. The tongue — fitted by the curious 

 construction of its muscles and the os hyoides, and lubricated with a 

 viscous saliva, either gently to secure and draw in the weaker prey, or 

 with great force and rapidity to dart out, and, it is said, to transfix the 

 larger and more nimble insects — joined to the short legs and hooked 

 scansorial claws, with the stiff, bent tail, are all provisions beautifully 

 arranged for their wants. 



All the species are solitary, live in pairs only during the season of in- 

 cubation, or are met with in small flocks, the amount of the years' brood, 

 in the end of autumn, before they have separated. This solitary habit, 

 and their haunts being generally gloomy and retired, has given rise to 

 the opinion entertained by many, that the life of the woodpecker was 



