A RED-HEADED FAMILY. 37 



like s ef hit wer joyin the joke any, I wud er 

 shot hit all ter pieces ef I d er hed ter lived 

 on turpentime all winter ! &quot; 



Of the American woodpecker there are more 

 than thirty varieties, I believe, nearly every 

 one of which bears some trace of the grand 

 scarlet crown of the great ivory-billed king of 

 them all. The question arises and I shall 

 not attempt to answer it whether the ivory- 

 bill is an example of the highest development, 

 from the downy woodpecker, say, or whether 

 all these inferior species and varieties are the 

 result of degeneracy? Neither Darwin nor 

 Wallace has given us the key that certainly 

 unlocks this very interesting mystery. 



The sap-drinking woodpeckers (Sphyropicus), 

 of which there are three or four varieties in 

 this country, appear to form the link between 

 the fruit-eating and the non-fruit-eating species 

 of the red-headed family. From sipping the 

 sap of the sugar-maple to testing the flavor of 

 a cherry, a service-berry, or a haw-apple, is a 

 short and delightfully natural step. How logi 

 cal, too, for a bird, when once it has acquired 

 the fruit-eating habit, to quit delving in the 

 hard green wood for a nectar so much inferior 

 to that which may be had ready bottled in the 

 skins of apples, grapes, and berries ! In ac 

 cordance with this rule, M. erythrocephalus 

 and Centurus carolinus, though great tipplers, 

 are too lazy or too wise to bore the maples, 

 preferring to sit on the edge of a sugar-trough, 

 furtively drinking therefrom leisurely draughts 

 of the saccharine blood of the ready-tapped 

 trees. I have seen them with their bills 

 stained purple to the nostrils with the rich 

 juice of the blackberry, and they quarrel 



