328" LAND-BIRDS. 



this species. " There is perhaps no bird in North America 

 more universally known than this. His tri-colored plumage, 

 red, white, and black glossed with steel blue, is so striking, 

 and characteristic ; and his predatory habits in the orchards 

 and corn fields, added to his numbers and fondness for hover- 

 ing along the fences, so very notorious, that almost every child 

 is acquainted with the Red-headed Woodpecker. In the im- 

 mediate neighborhood of our large cities, where the old tim- 

 ber is chiefly cut down, he is not so frequently found ; and yet 

 at this present time, June, 1808, I know of several of their 

 nests within the boundaries of the city of Philadelphia. Two 

 of these are in button-wood trees (Platanus occid en talis), and 

 another in the decayed limb of a large elm. The old ones I 

 observe make their excursions regularly to the woods beyond 

 the Schuylkill, about a mile distant ; preserving great silence 

 and circumspection in visiting their nests ; precautions not 

 much attended to by them in the depth of the woods, because 

 there the prying eye of man is less to be dreaded. Towards 

 the mountains, particularly in the vicinity of creeks and rivers, 

 these birds are extremely abundant, especially in the latter 

 end of summer. Wherever you travel in the interior at that 

 season, you hear them screaming from the adjoining woods, 

 rattling on the dead limbs of trees, or on the fences, where 

 they are perpetually seen flitting from stake to stake on the 

 roadside, before you. Wherever there is a tree, or trees, of 

 the wild cherry, covered wdth ripe fruit, there you see them 

 busy among the branches ; and in passing orchards, you may 

 easily know where to find the earliest, sweetest apples, by ob- 

 serving those trees, on or near which the Red-headed Wood- 

 pecker is skulking; for he is so excellent a connoisseur in 

 fruit, that wherever an apple or pear is found broached by 

 him, it is sure to be among the ripest and best flavored. 

 When alarmed, he seizes a capital one by striking his open 

 bill deep into it, and bears it off to the woods. When the In- 

 dian corn is in its rich, succulent, milky state, he attacks it 

 with great eagerness, opening a passage through the numerous 

 folds of the husk, and feeding on it with voracity. The gir- 

 dled, or deadened timber, so common among corn fields in the 



