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 ombú 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 Woodpecker was quite common on the pampas. I remember that when I was a small boy quite a colony lived in the ombú 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 Woodpecker. The ordinary note very much resembles the reiterated alarm-note of the Greater Yellow-legs (_Totanus 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."
The Kingfishers, which form the subject of an excellent illustrated Monograph by Mr. Sharpe[1], are but feebly represented in the New World. Out of the many varied generic forms which make up the family, only a single genus, with about eight species, is met with in the whole of the American Continent. This genus (_Ceryle_) is of wide diffusion, having also representatives in Africa and Asia. There is thus a great contrast with the Old World, where at least 120 species of Kingfishers are met with.