RED-HEADED WOODPECKER. 177 



of Ms 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 intelligence, I may safely say, 

 more than human ; he perceives by the exterior appearance of the bark 

 where they lurk below ; when he is dubious, he rattles vehemently on the 

 outside with his bill, and his acute ear distinguishes the terrified vermin 

 shrinking within to their 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 on the very vegetable life of the tree, 

 the alburnum, or newly forming bark and wood ; the consequence is, that 

 whole branches, and whole trees, decay, under the silent ravages of these 

 destructive vermin ; witness the late destruction of many hundred acres 

 of pine-trees in the north-eastern parts of South Carolina ;* and the 

 thousands of peach-trees that yearly decay from the same cause. Will 

 any one say, that taking half a dozen, or half a hundred, apples from 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 preserve ? We are told, in the benevolent language 

 of the Scriptures, not to muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out 

 the corn ; and why should not the same generous liberality be extended 

 to this useful family of birds, which forms so powerful a phalanx against 

 the inroads of many millions of destructive vermin. 



The Red-headed Woodpecker is, properly speaking, a bird of passage ; 

 though even in the Eastern States, individuals arc found during moderate 

 winters, as well as in the states of New York and Pennsylvania ; in 

 Carolina they are somewhat more numerous during that season ; but 

 not one-tenth of what are found in summer. They make their appear- 

 ance in Pennsylvania about the first of May ; and leave us about the mid- 

 dle of October. They inhabit from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, and 

 are also found on the western coast of North America. About the mid- 

 dle of May they begin to construct their nests, which, like the rest of 

 the genus, they form in the body, or large limbs, of trees, taking in no 

 materials, but smoothing it within to the proper shape and size. The 

 female lays six eggs, of a pure white ; and the young make their first 

 appearance about the twentieth of June. During the first season, the 

 head and neck of the young birds are blackish gray, which has ocoa- 



* In one place, on a tract of two thousand acres of pine land, on the Sampit 

 river, near Georgetown, at least ninety trees in every hundred were destroyed l)y 

 this pernicious insect, a small, black, winged bug, resembling the weevil, but some- 

 what longer. 



Vol. I.— 12 



