AVES. 
212 
these, however, not being the corresponding toes to those which are joined together in the King- 
fishers. [The sternal apparatus (fig. 99) is most nearly related to that of the Bee-eaters, but much 
shorter, with a lower medial ridge ; the Jacamars thus holding the same analogy with those birds which 
the Todies do to the Kingfishers ; and like the Todies, they have also a considerably lengthened, exceed- 
ingly thin, lamina-like tongue, a small and rather muscular gizzard, short intestines, 
and similar great coeca : both genera are very slightly made, have exceedingly thin 
skins, and soft puffy plumage (the character of the feathers being however different) ; 
the nostrils are a little removed from the base of the bill, and quite exposed ; the 
gape is furnished with vibrissas ; and they subsist by taking insects in the manner 
of a Flycatcher]. Their feathers have always a brilliant metallic shine. They live 
solitarily in humid woods, and nestle on low branches, [or, more probably, as Le Vail- 
lant was informed, in the holes of trees, laying blue eggs]. 
Fig. 99.— Sternum of The American species have a long beak, which is quite straight [the diagnosis of the restricted 
Jacamar. Galbiila.''\ These are much more numerous than the following. 
Others, from the Indian Archipelago, [a mistake of Le Vaillant, all the species inhabiting America, like the 
Todies,] have a shorter and more inflated beak, which is a little arched, and thus approximates that of the Bee- 
eaters. Their anterior toes are more separated. They constitute the Jacamerops of Le Vaillant, and that naturalist 
even figures one species devoid of the ridge to the upper mandible. 
Lastly, there is one in Brazil, which has only three toes. 
The Woodpeckers {Picus, Lin.) — 
Are well characterized by their long, straight, and angular bill, the end of which is compressed into a 
wedge adapted for perforating the bark of trees; by their slender vermiform tongue, armed- to w'ards 
the tip with lateral retroverted spines, and which, by the action of the elastic cornua of the hyoid bone, 
can be thrust far out from the beak : and finally by their tail, composed of ten feathers with stiff and 
elastic stems, which serve them as a support in climbing, besides which the twelfth pair of tail-feathers 
invariably exist externally, of minute size. They are pre-eminently climbing birds, W'hich traverse the 
bark of trees in every direction, [or rather, like the Tree-creepers, they are unable 
downward direction, otherwise than obliquely backward ; whereas the Nuthatches and 
Barbets climb perpendicularly upward or downward with equal facility] ; striking with 
the beak, and insinuating their long tongue into chinks and crevices, to draw out the 
larvae of insects on which they feed, [besides which, some of them subsist largely on 
acorns and nuts, even upon soft fruits, and on eggs.*] The tongue, in addition to 
its armature, is supplied with a viscid mucus secreted by large salivary glands, 
[which mucus is conveyed by a double duct that opens at its tip]: it is retracted by two 
muscles wound like ribands round the trachea, and when thus drawn in, the horns 
of the m hyoides slide round the skull beneath the skin nearly to the base of the 
upper mandible, the sheath of the tongue corrugating into folds at the bottom of the 
throat. Their stomach is nearly membranous, [though considerably less lax than in 
the Cuckoos] ; and they have no coeca. f Shy and wary, these birds pass the greater 
portion of their time solitarily, and, at the nuptial season, may often be heard sum- 
moning the female by rattling the beak against a dead branch. They nidificate once 
a year in the holes of trees, and both sexes incubate by turns. 
[llie species are extremely numerous, and generally distributed, with the exception of Australia. The great ma- i ti 
jority have crimson feathers on the head, and the largest of them have the rest of the plumage mostly pied with v | 
white. Such, in America, are the great Californian Woodpecker (P. imperialis, Gould,) and the Ivory-billed and ' i 
Pileated Woodpeckers, wherein the actual texture of the beak closely resembles ivory; also, the Great Black ^ 
Woodpecker of Europe, which is stated to have been sometimes met with in Britain. 
Others, forming an extremely numerous group, the Dendrocopus, Swainson, differ little but in being smaller, :'¥J| 
and more mottled with white. They inhabit, like the former, northern or mountain districts, feed much on nuts*^ 
and acorns, and never descend to the ground. Of four in Europe, two inhabit Britain, the Picus major and 
P. minor, Auctorum. 
Some, the Apternus, Swainson, are destitute of the ordinary hind-toe. There are several species, and one in | 
northern Europe (P. tridactylus, Lin.) 
Many of those of tropical climates have full soft ci-ests, and generally bald necks : these constitute the Malacolo- 
phus, Swainson. 
• ADDT3BON, Fic. erythrocephahif. I Woodpecker, two cojca of moderate size. In many that we have ex 
■f Prof. Owen found, in a single individual of the common Green I amined, these appendages were invariably wanting. — Ed. 
to proceed in a 
Fig. 100. — Sternum of 
Pied Woodpecker. 
