NORTHERN THREE-TOED WOODPECKER. 
67 
of proper discrimination, been placed among the four-toed species. 
The three-toed Woodpeckers have been formed into a separate 
genus, a distinction to which they might indeed be considered 
entitled, if they all possessed the other characters of the present; 
but besides that this character appears to be insulated, and of 
secondary importance, (since all forms of the bill known among 
the four-toed species, are met with among the three-toed, which 
ought therefore to make as many groups as there are forms, 
instead of a single one) the naturalist is perplexed by the 
anomalous species that inhabit India, of which one has only a 
stump destitute of nail, and another merely a very small nail 
without the toe; and as if nature took delight in such slow and 
gradual transitions, two others furnished with both toe and nail, 
have the toe exceedingly short, and the nail extremely small! 
This serves to demonstrate that Ficus , like other natural groups, 
admits of subdivision. These however ought not to be separa¬ 
tions; and the genus has been left comparatively untouched by 
the great innovators of our day, who have only established three 
genera from it. The first of these, Colaptes, of which F. auratus 
of North America may be considered the type, comprises the 
species that have four toes, and slightly curved bills, forming the 
passage to Cuculus; another, for which the name of Ficus is 
retained, includes the four-toed species with straight bills, and 
the third for the three-toed species indiscriminately. The only 
foreign three-toed species in our collection, the beautiful Ficus 
bengalensis of authors, (Ficus tiga of Horsfield) widely spread 
through tropical Asia and the adjacent islands, and, though 
long since known, always ranked as four-toed, has the bill pre¬ 
cisely similar to the four-toed species, being even remarkably 
compressed, and very sharp on the ridge. 
The Male Northern Three-toed Woodpecker is ten inches 
long, and sixteen in extent; the bill measures one inch and a 
