Sir John Richardson states that this bird is to be met with in all the forests of spruce and fir lying between Lake Superior and the Arctic Sea, and
that it is the most common Woodpecker north of Great Slave Lake, whence it has frequently been sent to the Smithsonian Institution. It is said to greatly resemble P. villosus in habits, except that it seeks its food principally upon decaying trees of the pine tribe, in which it frequently makes holes large enough to bury itself. It is not migratory.
Genus SPHYROPICUS, Baird.
Pilumnus, Bon. Consp. Zygod. Ateneo Italiano, May, 1854. (Type P. thyroideus) preoccupied in crustaceans.
Sphyropicus, Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 101. (Type, Picus varius,) Linn., Coues, Pr. A. N. S. 1866, 52 (anatomy).
Cladoscopus, Cab. & Hein. Mus. Hein. IV, 2, 1863, 80. (Type, P. varius.)
Sphyropicus nuchalis.
20511 ♀
Gen. Char. Bill as in Picus, but the lateral ridge, which is very prominent, running out distinctly to the commissure at about its middle, beyond which the bill is rounded without any angles at all. The culmen and gonys are very nearly straight, but slightly convex, the bill tapering rapidly to a point; the lateral outline concave to very near the slightly bevelled tip. Outer pair of toes longest; the hinder exterior rather longest; the inner posterior toe very short, less than the inner anterior without its claw. Wings long and pointed; the third, excluding the spurious, longest. Tail-feathers very broad, abruptly acuminate, with a very long linear tip. Tongue scarcely extensible.
The genus Sphyropicus, instituted in 1858, proves to be so strongly marked in its characters that Dr. Coues proposes to make it the type of a distinct subfamily, Sphyropicinæ (Pr. Phil. Acad. 1866, 52). In addition to the peculiarities already indicated, there is a remarkable feature in the tongue, which, according to Dr. Coues, Dr. Hoy, Dr. Bryant, and others, is incapable of protrusion much beyond the tip of the bill, or not more than the third of an inch. Dr. Coues states that the apo-hyal and cerato-hyal elements of the hyoid bone do not reach back much beyond the tympano-maxillary articulation, instead of extending round, as in Picus, over the occiput to the top of the cranium, or even curving into an osseous groove around the orbit. The basihyals supporting the tongue are shorter and differently shaped. The tongue itself is short and flattened, with a superior longitudinal median groove and a corresponding inferior ridge; the tip is broad and flattened and obtusely