Woodpecker
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
in ornithology, the popular name of the old Linnæan genus Picus, now greatly divided. Woodpeckers have a slender body, powerful beak, and protrusile tongue, which is sharp, barbed and pointed, and covered with a glutinous secretion derived from glands in the throat, this coating being renewed every time the tongue is drawn within the bill. The tail is stiff, and serves as a support when the birds are clinging to the branches or stems of trees. The plumage is generally of strongly contrast- Mil いいい! W. PLEATED WOODPECKER ed colors, black and white, or green and yellow, with red marks about the head. Woodpeckers are very widely distributed, but abound chiefly in warm climates. They are solitary in habit, and live in the depths of forests. Fruits, seeds, and insects constitute their food, and in pursuit of the latter they exhibit wonderful dexterity, climbing with astonishing quickness on the trunks and branches of trees, and when, by tapping with their bills, a rotten place has been discovered, they dig vigorously in search of the grubs or larvæ beneath the bark. The common notion that they are injurious to trees is erroneous, as they do more good by preventing the ravages of insects than harm by their pecking. They roost and breed in hollow trunks, or holes in trees, enlarged by their strong, sharp bills; the eggs, which are white, smooth, and glossy, vary considerably in number, and are deposited on a bed of chips at the bottom of the hole.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The description Collier's gave in 1921 — protrusile barbed tongue, stiffened propping tail, chips at the bottom of a nest hole — still holds, and the family (Picidae, now around 230–240 species) is described much the same way. Two things have moved. The claim that woodpeckers are "solitary in habit" no longer covers the family: the acorn woodpecker of the American West is now a textbook case of cooperative breeding, with group-held granaries and shared young, and the sapsuckers do drill living trees for sap, so the blanket verdict that they never harm trees is too generous. And the largest members have gone: the ivory-billed woodpecker was last confirmed in Louisiana's Singer Tract in the 1940s and Mexico's imperial woodpecker soon after, while the "pileated" bird pictured on the plate has recovered strongly as eastern forests grew back.
Written for this edition, 2026.