180 EEPOET OF NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM. 



Resident and universally distributed. 



This, our commonest Woodpecker, excepting only the Flicker, is a 

 familiar inhabitant of our orchards and woodlands, hewing out its 

 nest, after the manner of its kind, in some dead tree trunk, and later 

 piloting its speckled family about from tree to tree, digging out the 

 insects which lurk under the bark and in the rotten wood. 



In winter it is, perhaps, more conspicuous than in summer, and 

 comes closer to our dwellings, even pecking at the suet that we have 

 fastened up in the tree for our winter bird friends. 



The note of the Downy is a sharp metallic "pink, pink," often 

 rapidly repeated in a rattling cry, and quite as characteristic is the 

 "roll" which he beats with his bill on some hollow limb, and which 

 can be heard at long distances through the silent wood. 



The reports of the United States Department of Agriculture show 

 that seventy-four per cent, of the food of this Woodpecker is composed 

 of insects, largely beetles, while the twenty-five per cent, is vegetable 

 matter — seeds and^berries — taken largely during the winter when in- 

 sects are scarce. 



395 Dryobates borealis (Vieillot). 

 Red-cockaded Woodpecker. 



Adult male. — Length, 8.40. Wing, 4.65. Above, barred with black and white ; 

 crown, black, with a small spot of bright red on each side at the back of the 

 head ; a black stripe from the base of the bill to the shoulder ; under parts, 

 white ; sides and under tail-coverts streaked or spotted with black. 



Female. — Similar, but without red on the head. 



This southern species is given as rare in Turnbull's List (1869), 

 but whether it occurred in New Jersey or Pennsylvania is not speci- 

 fied. Audubon gives its range as from Texas to New Jersey, but no 

 details are furnished. Bonaparte did not know it from north of Vir- 

 ginia, nor Wilson from north of North Carolina. In fact the only 

 positive evidence that we have of its occurrence in New Jersey is one 

 specimen in the collection of Mr. George N. Lawrence, taken at 

 Hobo ken. ^ 



' Lawrence, Ann. Lye. Nat. Hist., N. Y., VIII., 1867, p. 201. 



