144 
PICUS AURATUS. 
rather hopping perpendicularly along the sides of the 
cage ; and, as evening drew on, fixed himself in a high 
hanging, or perpendicular position, and slept with his 
head in his wing. As soon as dawn appeared, even 
before it was light enough to perceive him distinctly 
across the room, he descended to the bottom of the 
cage, and began his attack on the ears of Indian corn, 
rapping so loud, as to be heard from every room in 
the house. After this he would sometimes resume 
his former position, and take another nap. He was 
beginning to become very amusing, and even sociable, 
when, after a lapse of several weeks, be became 
drooping’, and died, as 1 conceived, from the effects of 
his wound. 
Some European naturalists, (and, among the rest, 
Linnseus himself, in his tenth edition of Systema 
Naturce,) have classed this bird with the genus cuculus, 
or cuckoo, informing their readers, that it possesses 
many of the habits of the cuckoo ; that it is almost 
always on the ground ; is never seen to climb trees 
like the other woodpeckers, and that its bill is altogether 
unlike theirs ; every one of which assertions, I must 
say, is incorrect, and could have only proceeded from 
an entire unacquaintance with the manners of the 
bird. Except in the article of the bill, and that, as has 
been before observed, is still a little wedge-formed at 
the point, it differs in no one characteristic from the 
rest of its genus. Its nostrils are covered with tufts 
of recumbent hairs, or small feathers ; its tongue is 
round, worm-shaped, flattened towards the tip, pointed, 
and furnished with minute barbs ; it is also long, 
missile, and can be instantaneously protruded to an 
uncommon distance. The os hybides, or internal parts 
of the tongue, like those of its tribe, is a substance, for 
strength and elasticity, resembling whalebone, divided 
into two branches, each the thickness of a knitting 
needle, that pass, one on each side of the neck, to the 
hind head, where they unite, and run up along the 
skull in a groove, covered with a thin membrane, or 
s 
