5 6 4 
PICARIAN BIRDS. 
stealthy way. Both he and Mr. Davison call attention to the bodies of the birds 
having a peculiar smell, and being smeared with some gummy substance. The 
latter writer adds: “ They nearly always have their tails more or less studded 
with ants’ heads. These are the large red ants of the jungle, who, when once they 
seize anything, never loose their hold. You may pick them to pieces, but their 
IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER (J nat. Size). 
heads hold on still. They are the sumput-api or fire-ant of the. Malays, and 
they bite unpleasantly. They seize hold of the tail-feathers of these woodpeckers; 
their bodies get rubbed off, but the heads remain, sometimes in scores, adhering to 
the lateral webs of the tail-feathers.” In the Eastern Himalaya the present 
species also occurs, and builds in ants’ nests; Mr. Hume stating that a nest of this 
bird was one of the most remarkable he has ever seen. From the end of a large 
