Volume Ii Part 5 (2/2)

_Description._--Above white; wings and upper back, with a line on each side running up to the eye, black; nape tinged with yellow: beneath white; tail black, with white cross bands: whole length 110 inches, wing 55, tail 45. _Female_ similar, but without the yellow on the nape.

_Hab._ S. Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Northern Argentina.

Prof. Burmeister met with this peculiarly coloured Woodp.e.c.k.e.r near Parana, and Mr. Barrows found it resident in Entrerios, though not very abundant.

White speaks of this species as follows:--”These noisy birds, abundant in various parts of Misiones as well as in the rest of the north of the Republic, go about in flocks of eight or ten, and settle on the same tree, which they proceed to ascend very comically in a spiral or corkscrew fas.h.i.+on, each head touching the preceding tail. They are not seen in dense forests, but only out in the open, on some old, usually dead, tree, and I think I observed them as far south as the sierras of Cordoba.”

259. COLAPTES LONGIROSTRIS, Cab.

(LONG-BILLED WOODp.e.c.k.e.r.)

+Colaptes longirostris+, _Cabanis, Journ. f. Orn._ 1883, p. 97.

_Description._--Similar to _C. rupicola_, d'Orb., but with the bill much longer.

_Hab._ Tuc.u.man.

This is a southern form of the Brazilian _C. rupicola_, which has been recently described by Dr. Cabanis. Herr Schulz obtained a single male example of this species in Tuc.u.man. Like _C. rupicola_ it has red moustaches, but no red nape-band, whereas the more northern _C. pura_ of Peru shows a red nape-band in both s.e.xes.

260. COLAPTES AGRICOLA (Malh.).

(PAMPAS WOODp.e.c.k.e.r.)

+Colaptes agricola+, _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 101; _Hudson, P.

Z. S._ 1872, p. 549 (Rio Negro); _Barrows, Auk_, 1884, p. 25 (Entrerios); _Withington, Ibis_, 1888, p. 468 (Lomas de Zamora).

+Colaptes australis+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 445 (Parana). +Colaptes campestris+, _White, P. Z. S._ 1882, p. 618 (Misiones).

_Description._--Above greyish white, transversely barred with blackish; wings black, with golden-yellow shafts, and white bars on the outer webs; rump white, with smaller black cross bars; crested head black; sides of head and whole neck in front yellow; malar stripe red; abdomen white, with regular transverse black bars; under wing-coverts yellowish white; bill and feet black: whole length 130 inches, wing 68, tail 49. _Female_ similar, but no red malar stripe.

_Hab._ Argentina and Patagonia.

The species commonly called _Carpintero_ in the Argentine country, and ranging south to Patagonia, is one of a group of the Picidae of South America which diverge considerably in habits from the typical Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs. On trees they usually perch horizontally and crosswise, like ordinary birds, and only occasionally cling vertically to trunks of trees, using the tail as a support. They also seek their food more on the ground than on trees, in some cases not at all on trees, and they also breed oftener in holes in banks or cliffs than in the trunks of trees. As Darwin remarks in 'The Origin of Species,' in his chapter on Instinct, these birds have, to some slight extent, been modified structurally in accordance with their less arboreal habits, the beak being weaker, the rectrices less stiff, and the legs longer than in other Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs. In South Brazil and Bolivia the _Colaptes campestris_ represents this group, in Chili _C. pitius_, and in the Argentine country _C. agricola_.

Azara's description, under the heading _El Campestre_, probably refers to the Brazilian species, but agrees so well in every particular with the pampas Woodp.e.c.k.e.r that I cannot do better than to quote it in full.

”Though this name (_Campestre_) seems inappropriate for any Woodp.e.c.k.e.r, no other better describes the present species, since it never enters forests, nor climbs on trunks to seek for insects under the bark, but finds its aliment on the open plain, running with ease on the ground, for its legs are longer than in the others. There it forcibly strikes its beak into the matted turf, where worms or insects lie concealed, and when the ant-hills are moist it breaks into them to feed on the ants or their larvae. It also perches on trees, large or small, on the trunks or branches, whether horizontal or upright, sometimes in a clinging position and sometimes crosswise in the manner common to birds. Its voice is powerful, and its cry uttered frequently both when flying and perching. It goes with its mate or family, and is the most common species in all these countries. It lays two to four eggs, with white and highly polished sh.e.l.ls, and breeds in holes which it excavates in old walls of mud or of unbaked brick, also in the banks of streams; and the eggs are laid on the bare floor without any lining.”

In Patagonia, where I have found this bird breeding in the cliffs of the Rio Negro, its habits are precisely as Azara says; but on the pampas of Buenos Ayres, where the conditions are different, there being no cliffs or old mud-walls suitable for breeding-places, the bird resorts to the big solitary ombu tree (_Pircunia dioica_), which has a very soft wood, and excavates a hole 7 to 9 inches deep, inclining upwards near the end, and terminating in a round chamber.

This reversion to an ancestral habit, which (considering the modified structure of the bird) must have been lost at a very remote period in its history, is exceedingly curious. Formerly this Woodp.e.c.k.e.r was quite common on the pampas. I remember that when I was a small boy quite a colony lived in the ombu trees growing about my home; now it is nearly extinct, and one may spend years on the plains without meeting with a single example.

Mr. Barrows speaks as follows of this species:--”Abundant and breeding at all points visited. At Concepcion, where it is resident, it is by far the commonest Woodp.e.c.k.e.r. The ordinary note very much resembles the reiterated alarm-note of the Greater Yellow-legs (_Tota.n.u.s melanoleucus_), but so loud as to be almost painful when close at hand, and easily heard a mile or more away. They spend much time on the ground, and I often found the bills of those shot quite muddy. They are very tough and hard to kill, and a wounded one shows about as many sharp points as a Hawk. A nest found near Concepcion, November 6, 1880, was in the hollow trunk of a tree, the entrance being through an enlarged crack at a height of some three feet from the ground. The five white eggs were laid on the rubbish at the bottom of the cavity, perhaps a foot above the ground. In the treeless region about the Sierra de la Ventana we saw this bird about holes on the banks of the streams, where it doubtless had nests.”

Order IV. COCCYGES.

Fam. XXIV. ALCEDINIDae, or KINGFISHERS.

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