WOODPECKER, a bird of the family Picidar, one of the most sharply defined fanu lkes of birds which, with the related Picisni max and form the natural order Pica. These birds tease a unique type of bony palate (srurogiwthous) especially characterized by the separation of the %timer into a pair of splint hones; the fourth toe is reversed permanently so that it forms a pair with the hallux, which, however, is occasionally absent. The 'Wider are distinguished by the acute, rigid and bristly character of the tips of the five well-developed pairs of tail-quills, the outer or sixth pair be ing rudimentary. In typical woodpeckers the bead is large, the neck slender but very powerful, the bill stout, straight, chisel pointed, and often strengthened by longi tudinal ridges, the nostrils protected by a thick screen of bristly and the feet sera powerful, with short stout tarsi. strongl hooked claws and rough scales- The torncuc is slender and tlexil.le, with a bArl rd, hard tip in most cases, and the posterior h. old 'horns' curving up over the rear of the skull into sheaths of muscle. This toupee is pro vided with muscles for projecting it far be yond the tip of the bilL This arrangement enables these birds to explore deep recesses for insects, and even tolame from their borrows by meats barbed up and the adhesive secretion which the tongue receives from the greatly developed sahvary glands.
The woodpeckers are a large group, 4S genera and 350 species having been enumerated in 1890. Except Australian, Madagascar and certain groups of the Polynesian Islands they inhabit the forest-clad regions of the enure globe. Their food, which consists to a great extent of the long-lived wood-boring larva. makes them largely independent of seasons. and they are, with some exceptions. little migratory and are equally at home in gar northern and tropical forests. A few wood peckers, like Cobptes (see Fucatra), rot in like, search for worms and insects on the ground, and these have weaker, slightly curved rounded bills and smaller heads. Some, as the sapsuckers (Sp)tyropieits), drill the outer bark of rosaceous trees and lap the Sow ing sap with their bristle-brushed tongues or, like the redhead woodpecker, peck the ripest apples, green corn and other sweet and sac culent vegetables. But the great majority are strictly insectivorous and perform an invalu able service to human kind by their enormous destruction of a class of pernicious iztsects largely beyond artificial attack. In searching for insects woodpeckers usually begin at the very base of a tree trunk, move spirally up ward supported by their strong feet and bracket-like tail, peering into every crevice pausing occasionally to tap the bark, then re main in an attitude of apparent intense listen ing and move on. From time to time they peck the bark with hammer-like blows de livered with intense energy, which make the chips fly rapidly and soon expose the Lana whose presence within had apparently been detected by the bird's keen sense of bearing. As soon as one tree is sufficiently explored they go to another, but often spend a long time searching and drilling a decayed limb or stump much infested with insects. Wood peckers have a very characteristic undulanag or galloping flight which is seldom much pew tracted. Their nests are in boles drilled by themsehes first horizontally then vertically downward and chambered in the usually par tially decayed limb or bole of a tree or some suitable substitute. The eggs are always white with a highly polished porcelain-like surface. are usually numerous, and are deposited on a few wood chips at the bottom of the excava tion. Woodpeckers are unmusical. their tial song being a loud harsh rattling cry or laugh, combined with a loud drumming on resonant branches. Except during the nesting season they are usually silent and solitary birds About one-half of the known woodpeckers are American and eight genera and 30 species and sit' -species enter the United States, a number of racial forms being confined to the extreme Southwest. As their habits conform pretty closely to the account just gist-a. 000 a few representative forms nerd be mentioned The primate is the magnificent ivory-billed woodpecker (Campephilus principalis), the embodiment of all the attributes of wood pecker life and structure. (See IVORY-BILL).
A smaller, duller colored, but generally close counterpart of the ivory-bill is the pileated woodpecker (Ceophlceus pileatus), of similar habits and only less quickly affected by the destructive agencies of man. Its original range, however, was much wider, but it is now a generally very rare and wary inhabitant of the deep woods. It is about 17 inches long, the bill is black and the fourth toe is peculiar in being much shorter than the hallux. Dryo bates includes numerous species of small and moderate size with the plumage variously striped and spotted with black and white, the males with a red head-patch which the females lack. Very familiar nearly resident species of the wood lot and orchard are the little downy and the larger hairy woodpeckers (D. pubes erns and D. villosus). A more southern and woodland species is D. borealis, the red-cock aded woodpecker, while the West has D. scalaris, D. nuttallii and D. arizonce. Xeno picus contains the noteworthy X. albolarvatus, which has a completely white head; while Picoides is still more noteworthy in the entire absence of the hallux. Two or three species of the three-toed woodpeckers (P. arcticus, P. americanus, etc.), inhabit the northern parts and western mountains of North America, and others occur in Eurasia. Besides the much divided black and white the plumage shows some yellow and brown. The remaining North American species are less typical in structure and habits. First of them is the handsome and well-known red-headed woodpecker (Melon erpes erythrocephalus), locally a common bird among old timber everywhere east of the Rocky Mountains, except in New England. Southward it is resident, northward migratory and more a vegetarian than most woodpeckers, eating, besides insects, which it sometimes catches flying, nuts, berries, green corn and fruits in search of which it haunts the orchard. The California woodpecker (M. formicivories), as its name indicates, finds ants a favorite article of diet, but also eats fruits, nuts and acorns, and has a remarkable habit of storing vast quantities of the latter in chinks and holes, often completely studding the boles of tall trees with acorns wedged in singly and sometimes using the space behind the cornices of houses for storage. Much speculation has been indulged in concerning this habit, but the fact is that these birds are migratory and but few of the acorns or the contained grubs thus stored are ever utilized for food. The eastern red-head stores up acorns less regularly. This genus also in cludes three other western species and the red bellied woodpecker (M. carolinus) chiefly of the southeastern United States.
The sap-sucking habit and the peculiar structure of the tongue of Sphyrapicus have been alluded to above. The eastern species, the yellow-bellied woodpecker (S. varius), is the well-known sap-sucker, whose rows of holes completely encircling the trunks of orchard trees are so familiar. In the West are S. nuchalis, S. rwber and S. thyroideus. Finally, the genus Colaptes contains the hand some ground-woodpeckers or (q.v.), which, while retaining much that is plane in structure and habit, in other respects depart widely.
The Old World woodpeckers for the most part belong to the typical groups of genera, but three-toed woodpeckers are found in Europe and Asia and in the Malayan Islands, the latter being a peculiar crested genus (Gauropicoides). A ground woodpecker (Geocolaptes olivaceus) of South Africa is gregarious and remarkable from its habit of nesting, kingfisher-like, in holes in banks. The related wrynecks (lyngi dce), confined to the Old World, have the general aspects of larks, with soft broadly web bed tail feathers, but their feet and other anatomical parts and their habits, as well, are those of the woodpeckers. However, they nest in natural holes in trees or banks and often seek their food on the ground. The Picu minidce have short tails with feathers of the ordinary structure. They are mostly diminu tive insectivorous birds, chiefly confined to tropical America.
Consult Malherbe,