PIOUS. 



443 



little interest beyond the mere enumeration of their 

 colours. "We shall therefore only mention one or 

 two. 



Philippine Woodpecker (P.. Philippinarum} is a 

 native of the group of islands whose name it bears, 

 and measures about eleven inches in length. It is 

 green and brown on the upper part., with some pale 

 red on the head ; the wing-coverts are yellowish red ; 

 the rump and tail-coverts bright carmine red ; the 

 under parts white, mottled with black ; and the bill 

 and feet black. 



Malay Woodpecker (P. Malayensis) is about six 

 inches long. Its general colours on the upper part 

 are reddish grey and brown, and the under parts 

 reddish white and reddish yellow. 



Short-tailed Woodpecker (P. brachyurui). This is 

 a native of Java, and about eight inches in length. 

 It is dull brownish red, streaked with black on the 

 upper part ; the hind head is furnished with a very 

 long crest ; the under parts are reddish brown, mot- 

 tled with black ; and the tail is very short. 



What we have enumerated must suffice as a spe- 

 cimen of the woodpeckers of southern Asia and the 

 Asiatic Isles. The African ones are not so nume- 

 rous ; but we shall mention one or two. 



Cape Woodpecker (P. aurantius). This is described 

 as being of southern Africa, and it measures ten 

 inches and a half in length. The upper parts are 

 orange-yellow; the rump and upper tail coverts 

 blackish, as are also the hind neck, the sides of the 

 neck, and the cheeks ; the top of the head is red, 

 bordered by a white stripe on each side ; the wing 

 coverts are brownish-black on the small ones, and 

 olive-green with golden reflections on the large ; the 

 quills and tail feathers are black ; the bill and feet 

 bluish-ash. 



Double-mustachioed Woodpecker (P. mi/.itacus). This 

 is another species of southern Africa, measuring about 

 nine inches. The upper parts are olive waved with 

 yellow ; the cheeks and throat are white : the mus- 

 tachios and front black, the latter dottetT with red. 

 and the hind head is red ; the quills and tail feathers 

 are brown, mottled with yellow on the webs, and 

 have golden yellow shafts; the front of the neck is 

 white, mottled with olive, the under parts brown, 

 streaked with white, and the bill and feet brown. 



There are one or two other species described as 

 African ; but as they differ from those mentioned in 

 nothing but size and colour, it is unnecessary to al- 

 lude to them ; besides, in many of the species from 

 southern Africa, it is not very easy to decide whether 

 they are birds of that country, or brought from places 

 farther to the east and north. It is also to be borne 

 in mind, that the forests of India, of the eastern isles, 

 and of great part of Africa, are not very decidedly 

 woodpeckers' forests, and that the birds are conse- 

 quently of inferior importance in the history of nature 

 there, than they are in places where they are more 

 characteristic. 



When we turn our attention to America, especially 

 to North America, we find the situation of things 

 very much changed, and the woodpeckers very nu- 

 merous and highly interesting. In this part of the 

 world, too, we have the advantage of Wilson's de- 

 scription of their manners, as they were observed by 

 himself in their native woods ; whereas from the 

 south and east we have nothing but dry details of 

 colour. North America is indeed more of a wood- 

 pecker's country than any other now to be met with 



on the face of the earth ; and their historian has 

 thrown a very high degree of interest over the 

 labours and services performed and rendered by the 

 American woodpeckers. We shall glance at the 

 principal species. 



Ivory-titled Woodpecker (P. principals), W 7 ilson 

 gives Linnaeus credit for the descriptive nature of 

 this specific name, the bird in question being the 

 prince of the whole genus. His powerful bill is of 

 polished ivory, and his splendid crest is carmine-red, 

 giving him a commanding aspect, and his manners cor- 

 respond. " His manners," says Wilson, " have also 

 a dignity in them superior to the common herd of 

 woodpeckers. Trees, shrubberies, orchards, rails, 

 fence-posts, and old prostrate logs, are alike inte- 

 resting to those in their humble and indefatigable 

 search for prey ; but the royal hunter now before us 

 scorns the humility of such situations, and seeks the 

 most towering trees of the forests, seeming particu- 

 larly attached to those prodigious cypress swamps, 

 whose crowded giant sons stretch their bare and 

 blasted, or moss-hung arms midway to the skies. In 

 these almost inaccessible recesses, amid ruinous piles 

 of impending timber, his trumpet-like note and loud 

 strokes resound through the savage wilds, of which 

 he seems the sole lord and inhabitant. Wherever 

 he frequents, he leaves numerous monuments of his 

 industry behind him. We there see enormous pine- 

 trees, with cart-loads of bark lying around their roots, 

 and the chips of the trunk itself in such quantities, as 

 to suggest the idea that half a dozen of axe-men had 

 been at work for the whole morning. The body of 

 the tree is also disfigured with such numerous and so 

 large excavations, that one can hardly believe the 

 whole to be the work of a woodpecker." 



Wilson, however, takes the proper view of this 

 most active and energetic bird, and shows that he is 

 a preserver and not a destroyer. " The sound and 

 healthy tree is the least object of his attention. The 

 diseased, infested with insects, and hastening to pu- 

 trefaction, are his favourites ; there, the deadly 

 crawling enemy have formed a lodgment between the 

 bark and tender wood, to drink up the vital part of 

 the tree. It is the ravages of these vermin which the 

 intelligent proprietor of the forest deplores, as the 

 sole perpetrators of the destruction of his timber. 

 Would it be believed that the larvae of an insect, or 

 fly, no larger than a grain of rice, should silently and 

 in one season destroy some thousand acres of pine- 

 trees, many of them from two to three feet in dia- 

 meter, and a hundred and fifty feet high? Yet, who- 

 ever passes along the high road from Georgetown to 

 Charlestown in South Carolina, about twenty miles 

 from the former place, can have striking and melan- 

 choly proofs of this fact. In some places the whole 

 woods, as far as you can see around you, are dead, 

 stripped of the bark, their wintry-looking arms and 

 bare trunks bleaching in the sun, and tumbling in 

 ruins before every blast, presenting a frightful picture 

 of desolation." 



This glowing description by Wilson of the havoc 

 which insects commit in the American forests, shows 

 in the most forcible manner the vast advantage which 

 such forests derive from the labours of the wood- 

 peckers in keeping down the numbers of those ruth- 

 less destroyers. There have been nearly parallel 

 cases in so'me of the pine forests of Europe ; and it is 

 by no means impossible that the ravages of insects 

 were the chief means of destroying those extensive 



