PICIDJE, OB TIIE WOODPECKERS. 149 
what depressed hill, the angles of which are close 
to the margin of the upper mandible ; this sub-genus 
leads directly to the swallow-woodpeckers, forming 
the genus Mclanerpes. The other group at the op- 
posite side of the circle we have named Dendrobates., 
and its geographic distribution, no less than its dis- 
tinguishing colours, are in direct opposition to those 
which are so universal in the last. The situation of 
the lateral ridge on the bill, and the relative propor- 
tion of the two principal toes, are indeed the same 
as in Dendrocopm ; but the middle part of the bill, 
instead of being broad above, has the sides consi- 
derably compressed, so that the bill is higher be- 
yond the nostrils than it is broad. None of these 
birds inhabit the same latitudes as the Dendrocopi ; 
on the contrary, they only occur in intertropical 
regions, and although we have one species from 
the New World ( Dendrobates affinis* J, yet^all the 
rest we have hitherto seen are from Africa and India: 
the grey-hoaded woodpecker of Southern Africa 
( Picus Capensis of authors) is one of the types. In 
this, and in nearly all others we have seen of this 
division, the ground- colour of the plumage is olive, 
and the under parts are almost always banded or 
spotted : so uniformly constant is the style of co- 
louring in these two groups that they may be deter- 
mined at once by the most inexperienced student. 
It is to this latter group, in short, that we now 
have to call attention, since three of the species we 
are about to describe belong to it ; some are more 
* Picus affinis, Zool. Illust. i. pi. 78. 
