440 WOODPECKERS. 



process for digestion. In the month of March, in Florida and 

 Alabama, I observed them already pairing, on which occasion 

 many petulant quarrels daily ensued from a host of rival sui- 

 tors, accompanied by their ordinary cackling and squealing. 

 One of their usual complaisant recognitions, often delivered on 

 a fine morning from the summit of some lofty dead limb, is 

 ^wit a ''wit ^wit ''wit ^wit ^wit 'wit weet and woit a woit, woit 

 wait woit woit, commencing loud, and slowly rising and quick- 

 ening till the tones run together into a noise almost Hke that 

 of a watchman's rattle. They have also a sort of complaining 

 call, from which they have probably derived their name of 

 pee idt, pee itt ; and at times a plaintive qumh queah. Occa- 

 sionally they also utter in a squealing tone, when surprised, or 

 engaged in amusing rivalry with their fellows, we-cogh we-cogh 

 we-cogh we-cogh or weciip weciip weciip. 



The food of these birds varies with the season. They are 

 at all times exceedingly fond of wood-lice, ants, and their 

 larvae ; and as the fruits become mature, they also add to their 

 ample fare common cherries, bird cherries, winter grapes, gum- 

 berries, the berries of the red-cedar, as well as of the sumach, 

 smilax, and other kinds. As the maize too ripens, the Flicker 

 pays frequent visits to the field ; and the farmer, readily for- 

 getful of its past services, only remembers its present faults, 

 and closing its career with the gun, unthinkingly does to him- 

 self and the public an essential injury in saving a few unim- 

 portant ears of corn. In this part of New England it is known 

 by the name of Pigeon Woodpecker, from its general bulk and 

 appearance ; and, to the disgrace of our paltry fowlers, it is 

 in the autumn but too frequently seen exposed for sale in the 

 markets, though its flesh is neither fat nor delicate. It is 

 exceedingly to be regretted that ignorance and wantonness in 

 these particulars should be so productive of cruelty, devas- 

 tation, and injurious policy in regard to the animals with whose 

 amusing and useful company Nature has so wonderfully and 

 beneficently favored us. 



