THE DOWNY WOODPECKER. 89 



strikes its object with both feet, and makes no discrimina- 

 tion between a horizontal branch or limb and a perpendicular 

 one. It commences its building operations quite early, often 

 by the 20th of April. The nest is made by excavating in 

 old trees in the woods, rarely in orchards : the hole made is 

 often as much as eighteen inches in depth, in some cases 

 hardly five inches. A post in a fence is sometimes taken 

 for a breeding-place, the hole in which the rail is inserted 

 furnishing a starting-place for the excavation of the nest. 



The eggs are usually five in number ; seldom more, often 

 less : they are of a beautiful clear-white color, and the shell 

 is very smooth and rather thin ; and, before the contents of 

 the egg are removed, they impart a rosy tint to it. Speci- 

 mens vary in size from .77 to .84 inch in length, by from 

 62 to .68 inch in breadth. 



The nest is never lined with leaves or other soft materials, 

 so far as my observation has been ; but the eggs are depos- 

 ited on a small pile of chips of the rotten wood, which seem 

 to be left by the bird designedly for this purpose. 



The food of this species consists principally of the eggs 

 and larvae of injurious insects that are burrowing in the 

 wood of our fruit and forest trees : these he is enabled to 

 obtain by chiselling out a small hole with his powerful bill, 

 and drawing them from their lurking-places with his long- 

 barbed tongue. He also eats some small fruits and berries, 

 but never, so far as I am aware, the buds or blossoms of 

 trees, as some persons assert. 



PIOUS PUBESCENS. Linncetis. 

 >. The Downy Woodpecker. 



Picus pubescens, Linnaeus. Syst. Nat., I. (1766) 15. Vieill. Ois. Am. (1807) 65. 



"Picw jyubescens," Linnaeus, Wilson. Am. Orn. I. (1808) 153. Aud. Orn. 

 Biog. II. (1834). 



DESCRIPTION. 



A miniature of P. vittosus. Above black, with a white band down the back ; two 

 white stripes on the side of the head ; the lower of opposite sides always separated , 

 the upper sometimes confluent on the nape ; two stripes of black on the side of the 



