42 
PIOUS TRIDAC.TYLUS. 
whence Vieillot took his highly characteristic nan' 1 ) 
( Picus hirsutus , Pic a pieds vetus,') the feathered tarsi 
a peculiarity which this alone possesses to the sai* ( 
extent. The plumage is an uniform black above in t 1,( 
adult, with t lie top of the head yellow iu the mak 
while the southern, whose tarsi are naked, is blar'i 
undulated with white, the male having the sinciput re^ 
It is worthy of remark, that the three-toed group foul" 1 
in arctic and in tropical America, should have r 1 ' 
representative in the intermediate countries. 
Although these are the only three-toed woodpecke** 
noted as such in the books, several others are knon'* 
to exist, some of which, long since discovered, ten 
through inadvertence, or want of proper discrimination 
been placed among the four-toed species. The thro" 
toed woodpeckers have been formed into a separaW 
genus, a distinction to which they might indeed k 
considered entitled, if they all possessed the otb f ' 
characters of the present ; but, besides that this characw 
appears to be insulated, and of secondary important'*' 
(since all forms of the bill known among the four-tO e 
species are met with among the tliree-toed, which ougJj 
therefore, to make as many groups as there are for)' 1 ' 
instead ot a single one,) the naturalist is perplexed k' 
the anomalous species that inhabit India, of which o" 1 
has only a stump destitute of nail, and another mere 1 ! 
a very small nail without the toe, and, as if nature to^ 
delight in such slow and gradual transitions, two oth^ 
furnished with both toe and nail, have the toe exceeding 1 ! 
short, and the nail extremely small! This serves 1,1 
demonstrate that Picus, like other natural groups, adnU 1 * 
of subdivision. These, however, ought not to ^ 
separations; and the genus has been left comparative 1 ! 
untouched by the great innovators of our day, who 
only established three genera from it. The first of the* sft 
Cotaptes, of which P. auratus of North America may 11 
considered the typo, comprises the species that hs fl 
four toes, and slightly curved bills, forming the pass* 1 ' 1 , 
to Cuculus; another, for which the name of Picus". 
retained, includes the four-toed species with straii,' 1 * 
