380 ScANsoRES. BIRDS. Picida:. 
curious species t.o wliicli we must briefly allude. One 
of these is the Phillip Island Parrot, which is believed 
to be now peculiar to the small island whose name it 
bears, and even there it is getting very scarce. Its plum- 
age is brown above ; the head and back of the neck 
are gray ; the cheeks, throat, and chest, are yellow, the 
former tinged with red ; the rump, belly, and under 
tail-coverts are deep red, and the tail-feathers are 
banded with orange and brown. Tire structure of the 
tongue is peculiar ; it is furnished with a small horny 
scoop on the under side of the tip, which is supposed 
to be of service to the bird in feeding upon the nectar 
of certain flowers of which it is very fond. The ujiper 
mandible is much prolonged. 
THE NEW ZEALAND NESTOR {Nestor hypopoUus) 
is very similar to the preceding, but has a somewhat 
shorter upper mandible, and differs in some particulars 
of its colouring. It feeds upon fruits, benies, and roots, 
and is frequently caught and tamed by the natives, 
when it learns to speak with great facility. 
PECQUET’S DASYPTILE {Dasyptilus Pecquetii) an 
inhabitant of New South AVales, is another singular 
species, having the basal portion of the bill much 
stiaighter than in tire other parrots, and the upper 
mandible somewhat suddenly hooked, so that the form 
of the bill resembles that prevailing amongst the rapa- 
cious birds. The cere, also, is greatly developed, as in 
the birds of prey, and the nostrils are placed close to 
its margin. The cheeks, the top of the head, and the 
upper part of the neck, are wholly or partially naked ; 
the cheeks bearing only scattered hairs, and the head 
being sparingly clothed with setaceous feathers. The 
general colour of the plumage, which is of a rigid tex- 
ture, is black, but the greater wing-coverts, the outer 
webs of the secondary quills, the upper tail-coverts, and 
the whole lower surface below the breast, are of a fine 
crimson. It is a large species, measuring fully twenty 
inches in length. 
THE KAKAPO {Strigoqjs Jiabroptilus) is perhaps the 
most singular of all the Psittacida3, from the remark- 
able resemblance which it presents to an owl in its 
general aspect and in the nature of its plumage. It is 
an inhabitant of Now Zealand and of the neighbouring 
islands, and is strictly nocturnal in its habits, passing the 
day concealed in holes under the roots of trees, and 
coming forth at night to seek the roots which constitute 
its favourite food. The habits of this bird are strictly 
terrestrial, its wings being very short, and its power of 
flight small ; on the ground, however, it runs with gi-eat 
facilit}', and forms tracks, in the places which it fre- 
quents, of about a foot broad, and so exactly like 
ordinary footpaths, that when first seen they led to the 
suspicion that natives vrere residing in the vicinitj'. 
The cry of this bird is a hoarse croak, and is compared 
by the natives to that of a species of owl inhabiting the 
same country. The}’ also say that great numbers of 
Kakapos assemble together and pass the winter in large 
caves, and that, at the time of their assembling and dis- 
persion, they exert their voices to such an extent as to 
produce a noise that is perfectly deafening. They breed 
in the holes which they oixlinarily inhabit, lining the 
bottom with a little fern, and lay two or three eggs. 
The Kakapo is a solitary and not very abundant bird ; 
and since the introduction of cats into New Zealand its 
numbers have decreased so greatly, that there is some 
reason to fear that it will speedily become almost 
extinct. 
It is a moderately lai'ge species, and is covered with 
a thick soft plumage, resembling in its texture that of 
the ow'ls and other nocturnal birds; and, like these, it 
has a perfectly noiseless flight. The general colour of 
the plumage is a grayish-green, darker on the upper 
surface, wdiere it is mottled with spots and zigzag lines 
of black ; tbe lower surface is black, marked w'ith deli- 
cate, undulated, dusky lines. Tbe eyes are of consider- 
able size and surrounded below by a facial disc of slender 
feathers, which partially conceal the base of the bill, 
exactly as in the owds. With this singular bird w'e take 
leave of the Parrot family. 
Family III.— PICIDtE. 
The birds of this family, which are commonly known 
as Woodpeckers, have a rather long straight bill, of 
w’hich the tip is commonly obtuse or truncated, and the 
sides marked wuth a longitudinal ridge. Their feet, as 
already described (see page 372, and fig. 120), are organ- 
ized for running upon the bark of trees, being furnished 
with long, spreading toes, armed at the extremity with 
strong, sharp, curved claws, which enable them readily 
to seize any small inequality of the bark ; whilst the 
tarsus is so placed as to form a sort of sole which gives 
the bird great firmness in its ordinary position. Both 
the tarsi and toes are clothed above with scaly plates. 
The tail also is of service to most of tbe Woodpeckers 
in their climbing; it is rather short, but composed of 
stiff feathers, which are pointed at the extremity, and 
generally more or less worn away at this jiart. 
These birds, especially the more typical species (for 
some, as we shall see, differ from the rest in their habits), 
reside in the woods and forests of both hemispheres, 
principally in the warmer regions, and run with great 
activity and in every direction upon the trunks and 
branches of trees, searching for the insects which con- 
stitute the greater part of their food. With this object 
in view they are constantly tapping the bark with their 
bills, in order to discover soft or rotten places which 
may be inhabited by bark-feeding insects ; on meeting 
wiili a suspicious spot (and they are probably seldom 
mistaken), they immediately dig vigorously into the 
bark and seize the insect or larva. The capture of the 
smaller insects at any rate is eflected by means of the 
tongue, which, with its appurtenances, exhibits a beau- 
tiful modification to adapt it for this purpose. The 
hyoid bone, which supports the tongue, has its posterior 
branches enormously elongated and continued in the 
form of slender springs, which, passing under the skull, 
are carried up round the back and over the top of the 
head, until their extremities reach to the right nosti il. 
ICach of these elongated bony springs is accompanied 
throughout by a slender muscle, by the contraction of 
which its bow is sbortened, and tbe longue is pushed 
out. Its retractation is effected by means of another 
pair of muscles. The tip of the tongue itself is horny, 
and furnished with several small barbs directed back- 
wards ; this arrangement is supposed to facilitate the 
