476 SYSTEM A TIC SYNOPSIS. — PICABI^ — PICIFOBMES. 
young birds have the feathers of the upper parts skirted with whitish ; the bill and feet pale 
bluish. Eastern U. S. and Canada, west to the Kocky Mts., N. to Labrador, coninion ; rather 
more northerly than C. americanus, being the commoner species in New England; said to 
winter in Florida. Nest preferably in bushes, often quite near the ground; eggs 1.10 X 0.80, 
greenish, deeper-colored, less elliptical and smaller than those of the yellow-billed cuckoo, 
though probably not to be distinguished with certainty. 
429. C. america'nus. (Lat. American. Figs. 326, 327-) Yellow-billed Cuckoo. Bill black, 
extensively yellow below and on the sides of upper mandible. Feet dark plumbeous. Above, 
satiny olive-gray. Below, pure white. Wings extensively cinnamon-rufous on inner webs of 
the quills. Central tail-feathers like the back ; the rest black with large white tips, the outer- 
most usually also edged with white. Very constant in color, the chief variation being in extent 
and intensity of the cinnamon on the wings, which sometimes shows through when the wings 
are closed, and even tinges the coverts. Young difier chiefly in having the white ends of the 
tail-feathers less trenchant and extensive, the black not so pure ; this state approaches the con- 
dition of C. erythrophthalmus, but does not match it. Length 11.00-12.00 ; extent 15.50-16.50 ; 
wing 5.50-6.00; tail about 6.00; biU a short inch; tarsus 1.00; middle toe and claw rather 
more. U. S., rather more southerly than the last species, and chiefly Eastern; but also. Pacific 
coast and Southern Rocky Mts. Nest a slight structure of twigs, leaves and catkins, on a 
bough or in fork of a tree rather than in a bush; eggs 4 to 8, pale greenish, 1.25 X 0.90, laid 
irregularly, mostly in June. 
430. C. seni'culus. (Lat. senicuhis, a little old man ; diminutive of senex, probably alluding to the 
gray on the head.) Mangrove Cuckoo. Bill much as in the last. Above, the same quaker- 
color, but more decidedly ashy-gray toward and on head. Below, pale orange-brown. Wings 
suffused with the color of the belly. Auriculars dark, in contrast. Tail as in the last, but 
outer feather not white-edged. Size of the others, or rather less. West Indies; Florida, 
rarely. Eggs as in C. americanus. 
5. Suborder PICIFORMES: Piciform Birds. 
See p. 446 for characters of this suborder. It is a perfectly homogeneous group, so much 
so as to be often reduced to the grade of a single family, Picidce, then with lyngincB and 
PiciimnincB as subfamilies. In palatal characters the Piciform birds exhibit '^a simplification 
and degradation of the segithognathous structure" {Huxley), and this passerine affinity is borne 
out by the common reduction of the first primary to small size or even spurious condition, leav- 
ing but 9 functionally developed primaries; but the details of the construction of the bony 
palate, as worked out by Parker, are so extraordinary that he has proposed to make the Pici- 
formes one of the major divisions of Carinate birds (see p. 173, fig. 80). The greater secondary 
coverts are likewise as short as in Passeres. The feet are highly scansorial by reversion of the 
fourth toe. In typical Pici the bill is straight, hard, often strengthened by lateral ridges, and 
forming an efficient chiselling instrument. The salivary glands are highly developed, and the 
hyoidean apparatus is peculiar. The sternum is doubly-notched. Only the left carotid is 
present ; the oil-gland is tufted, and there are no coeca. The accessory femoro-caudal, accessory 
semitendinosus and ambiens muscle are absent. The nearest relatives of the Piciform birds are 
the CapitonidcB or Scansorial Barbets, and the Toucans (Ehamphastid^s) ; both of which are 
so closely affined that they might come under the above head, with little modification of the 
characters here assigned. Of the three families here meant to be included by the term Pici- 
formes, the Old World lyngidcB or Wrynecks are most unlike Woodpeckers, having a soft tail 
and various other peculiarities. The Picumnidce are more Woodpecker-like, but still the tail 
is soft ; in general superficialities they resemble Nuthatches quite curiously. Exclusion of these 
two families leaves us the 
