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(136 ON THE ae ss 
principal group of the woodpecker family, wea: 
by the minute woodpecker (Asthenurus minutus 8 
whose black and spotted head indicates an affinit oa 
’ Malacolophus. M.'Temminck, having discovered a sm. 
barbut which is closely related to this type, has though 
it expedient, without any assigned reason, to reject ov 
name, and substitute a new one of his own. The 
barbuts have the same constructed feet, and possess the 
same property of climbing, as the woodpeckers, but ina 
much less degree: their tail feathers are soft, and of the 
ordinary construction ;: the bill, in some, is very strong, 
_ straight, and compressed ; in others it is greatly depressed 
- and in one group, short and toothed. Mr. Burchell was 
the first naturalist who discovered the affinity of these 
singular birds to the woodpeckers; having repeatedly — 
heard their loud tapping in the forests of Southern Africa, 
and witnessed their dexterity in climbing trees: in the 
straight-billed or typical barbuts (Bucco), we have the 
predominant colours of the parrots—green, red, blue, and 
yellow variously combined ; while the black and red 
plumage of the tooth dated division ‘(which i is the true 
type of the whole) corresponds with that of the mos if 
perfectly formed woodpeckers: a third group, whose 
precise station is not yet known, represents these birds 
in South America. hi 
(152.) The other genera whose climbing habits hay 
induced naturalists to place them with this family, - 
Yunzx and Oxyrhynchus. ‘The firstof thesetypes belongs 
exclusively to the Old World ; and two species have been 
discovered: the latter seems to be the representative of 
it in America, and is at present confined to a single = 
species. 4 
(153.) The Parrots constitute the subtypical division 
of this tribe, wherein the powers of climbing are less 
developed. If any group in nature be isolated, it is this. 
Possessing in themselves the strongest characteristics, 
there is no bird yet discovered which presents any point 
of connection to them: approximations, indeed, are 
certainly made towards them by the tooth-billed barbuts — 
