. The woodpeckers. Woodpeckers. 80 THE WOODPECKERS or with three forward and one the other way. The owls have a reversible outer toe, and per- haps the woodpeckers did also before it became permanently reversed. That this is exactly what had happened is curi- ously confirmed. There are a few woodpeckers in this country which have but three toes. They are the only North American land birds with less than four toes (though many sea and shore birds have but Foot of Three-toed Woodpecker, ^-^^^^y Compare this picture with a four-toed woodpecker's foot. One toe is gone completely, when or how no on
. The woodpeckers. Woodpeckers. 80 THE WOODPECKERS or with three forward and one the other way. The owls have a reversible outer toe, and per- haps the woodpeckers did also before it became permanently reversed. That this is exactly what had happened is curi- ously confirmed. There are a few woodpeckers in this country which have but three toes. They are the only North American land birds with less than four toes (though many sea and shore birds have but Foot of Three-toed Woodpecker, ^-^^^^y Compare this picture with a four-toed woodpecker's foot. One toe is gone completely, when or how no one can tell. But in some way the first toe, the thumb, the one we always begin to count from, has dis- appeared. The one left is the reversed fourth toe, as we know by the number of joints in it. Undoubtedly this woodpecker needed a hind toe, but he must have needed a longer, stronger one than his natural first toe. A toe of the right length was suppKed by turning one of the front toes back, and the short hind toe in some way disappeared. This may seem a roundabout way to show that a woodpecker's foot is a pair of nippers. First we studied nippers till we found out that. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Eckstorm, Fannie Hardy, 1865-1946. Boston, New York, Houghton, Mifflin and Company
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpublisherbosto, bookyear1901
