178 Ttic Canadian Woodpeckers* 



Picus ERYTHROCEPHALus, (Linn.) — ^The Red-headed Woodpecker.. 



Specific Characters.— Heed and neck bright crimson, that colour 

 descending on the foreneck, and margined with a semilunar 

 band of black; back, wings, and tail, glossy bluish black; 

 in7ier secondaries, rump, and lower parts, pure white; young,, 

 with the head and neck brovmish gretj, streaked with dusky, . 

 edged with grey; secondary quills, yellowish white, barred 

 with black; lower parts, greyish white; the sides, streaked 

 with dusky. Male, 9,17; Female, ^%. Audubon's Synopsis , . 

 page 184. The specific name is from the Greek, {Erythraios,);, 

 red ; and [Kephale,) the head. Breeds from Texas to Nova: 

 Scotia, and throughout the British Provinces. 



The Red-headed Woodpecker — the most common and the most observed' 

 of all the tribe in North America, subsists partly upon insects and in part 

 upon vegetable food. Wild cherries, apples, Indian com, and various kinds 

 of berries constitute a portion of his food while they are in their season, and 

 in making his selections he is known to exercise the taste and judgement of 

 a connoisseur. The Indian corn is taken in its rich succulent milky state ; 

 and in the orchard, if you wish to find the earliest and sweetest apples, you 

 have only to approach those trees on or near which our red-headed friend 

 may be seen loitering.. "Though this bird (says Wilson,) occasionaUy 

 regales himself upon fruit, yet his natural and most useful food is insects, 

 particularly those numerous and destructive species that: penetrate the bark 

 and body of the tree to deposit their eggs and larvae, the latter of which are 

 well known to make immense havock. That insects are his natural food,. 

 is evident from his wedge-formed bill, the length, elasticity, and figure of his- 

 tongue, and the strength and position of his claws, as well as from his usual 

 habits. In fact, insects form at least two-thirds of his- subsistence, and his 

 stomach is scarcely ever found without them. He searches for them with a 

 dexterity and intdligence, I may safely say more than human ; he perceives* 

 by the exterior appearance of the bark where they lurk below ; when he h 

 dubious, he rattles vehemently on the outside with his bill, and his acute ear 

 distmguishes the terrified vermin shrinking within to theu* inmost retreats,, 

 where his pointed and barbed tongue soon reaches them. The masses of 

 bugs, caterpillars, and other larvae, which I have taken from the stomachs of; 

 these birds have often surprised me. These larvae, it should be remembered, 

 feed not only on the buds, leaves and blossoms, but also on the very vegetable 

 life of the tree — the alburnum, or newly forming bark and wood ; the 

 consequence is, that the whole branches and whole trees decay under the 

 silent ravages of tk^se destructive verminw Will any one say, that taking 

 half a dozen or half a hundred apples fi'om a tree is equally ruinous with 

 cutting it down ? or that the services of a useful animal should not be 

 rewarded with a small portion of that which it has contributed to preserved 

 We are told in the benevolent language of the scriptures, not to muzzle the- 

 aoutli of the ox that trcadeth out the corn, and why should not the sams' 



