Gecinus viridis, our well-known Green Woodpecker, Yaffle, or Rain-bird, the "laugh" of which is supposed to predict wet weather, is a green bird with yellow rump and red head; the habits being those common to the whole group, though a certain preference is shewn for feeding on the ground or on ant-hills. It ranges throughout Europe to Asia Minor and Persia, while other nearly allied forms, differing in their black occiputs or scarlet rumps, extend over nearly the whole Eastern Palaearctic and Indian Regions. Chloronerpes is a Central and South American genus of smaller birds, among which C. rubiginosus has golden-rufous upper parts, with a red nape, and yellowish under surface crossed by dark bars. Akin to this is the Ethiopian Campethera, C. punctata being yellow, olive, and brown above, with a crimson head, and yellow below with small black spots. Chrysophlegma extends from the Himalayas to China and the Malay Islands. C. flavinucha is about the size of the Green Woodpecker, but is much yellower, and has a splendid orange crest on the nape, a yellow throat and a grey breast; C. miniatum has the crest and upper parts washed with red.
The three-toed Gauropicoïdes rafflesi of the Malay countries has a long black crest, and narrow, pointed tail-feathers, which contrast well with its golden back; the under parts are brownish. Asyndesmus torquatus of the Western United States has very peculiar hair-like plumage below, in which the first subdivisions of the whitish webs are not again divided; the upper surface is bronzy-green, the front of the head crimson, and the collar white. Melanerpes is a large genus with many brilliant forms, which range throughout America; M. flavifrons being black above, with white rump, crimson head and breast, broad golden forehead and throat, and brownish chest; M. candidus having the head and breast pure white, and the blackish back only relieved by a yellow band on the nape; whereas M. formicivorus is intermediate in coloration. The last-named, often called the Californian Woodpecker, extends southwards to Mexico and northwards up the Pacific Coast to British Columbia; it stores up acorns by inserting their upper halves in holes bored in the limbs of trees, which may be sometimes seen studded with them to a height of forty feet or more.[[263]] Apparently this is done for the sake of the grubs in the acorns; while, as its name implies, the bird also devours ants.
Sphyropicus contains the three Sap-suckers, which together range throughout North America, an individual having strayed to Greenland. S. varius shews a striking combination of colours in its black and white back, crimson head and throat, black chest, and yellow breast, while it has the curious habit, shared by its congeners, of puncturing trunks of trees to obtain the sap, in which they delight. Sometimes the entire bole is encircled by these borings.
Nearly all that has already been said of the Family in general, particularly with regard to the "drumming," may be repeated of the Spotted Woodpeckers, of which Dendrocopus major and D. minor are the British representatives. The colours in this genus are black and white in varied proportions, with crimson on the head and often on the lower parts; a small amount of buff and brown being not uncommonly added, while in D. brunneifrons, a Himalayan form, there is an admixture of yellow with the red on the crown. Our Greater and Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers extend throughout Europe and North Asia, and reach the Atlantic Islands; while some thirty congeners widen the range until it includes nearly all the Palaeartic, Nearctic, and Indian Regions. They are also found south of lat. 20° S. in the Neotropical. D. leuconotus and D. (Dendrocoptes) medius are other European forms, with varying races. Picoïdes is a similarly coloured genus of three-toed birds, with yellow instead of red on the head. They inhabit the most northern forests of both Worlds, reaching southward to Central Europe, China, and (west of the Rocky Mountains) to New Mexico. P. tridactylus is well-known in Europe.
Fig. 95.–Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. Dendrocopus minor. × ½. (From Bird Life in Sweden.)
Iyngipicus is a large group of small species, which stretch from India to the Kuril Islands, Chira, Flores, and Celebes; and, if Hargitt is right in considering Picus obsoletus congeneric, from North-East Africa to Senegambia. The colours are black or olive above, relieved by white and fulvescent below with dark stripes or spots, the occiput shewing a band, or two streaks, of red; the lateral tail-feathers, moreover, are hardly rigid, approaching in that respect those of Picumnus. Dendrobates is a still larger genus of similarly sized birds, varying from nearly uniform olive with a red crown, or bright red with white under parts, to dull gold-colour, where the lower surface is buff barred with brown; the head being in the last case red, but the nape yellow. They range from Northern Argentina to Central America. Mesopicus goertan, one of half a dozen finely-coloured species found throughout most of the Ethiopian Region, has an olive back, long crimson feathers on the head and rump, and a greyish breast.
Thus far all the members of the Family agree in having the nostrils covered with bristles. Among those in which the bristles are wanting may be mentioned Celeus and the three-toed Tiga javanensis and its congeners, extending from India to Cochin China. The last-named has a brilliant golden-orange back, a crimson head, crest and rump, black tail, neck and wings, and dark brown under parts with white spots. Celeus ranges from Mexico to South Brazil, C. flavus being canary-yellow with brown tail and wings, a large crest of the former colour, and a crimson stripe at the gape. This genus, and the five following, are characterized by having the neck extremely narrow and compressed.
Fig. 96.–Great Black Woodpecker. Picus martius. × ⅕. (From Bird Life in Sweden.)