THE WOODPECKER. 377 



mon cherries, bird-cherries, and berries of the sour gum, suc- 

 cessively ripen, he regales plentifully on them, particularly on 

 the latter ; but the chief food of this species, or that which is 

 most usually found in his stomach, is wood-lice, and the 

 young and larvae of ants, of which he is so immoderately 

 fond, that I have frequently found his stomach distended 

 with a mass of these, and these only, as large nearly as a 

 plum. For the procuring of these insects, nature has re- 

 markably fitted him. The bills of Woodpeckers, in general, 

 are straight, grooved or channelled, wedge-sharped, and com- 

 pressed to a thin edge at the end, that they may the easier 

 penetrate the hardest wood ; that of the Golden-winged Wood- 

 pecker is long, slightly bent, ridged only on the top, and taper- 

 ing almost to a point, yet still retaining a little of the wedge 

 form there. Both, however, are admirably adapted to the 

 peculiar manner each has of procuring its food. The former, 

 like a powerful wedge, to penetrate the dead and decaying 

 branches, after worms and insects ; the latter, like a long and 

 sharp pick axe, to dig up the hillocks of pismires, that inhabit 

 old stumps in prodigious multitudes. These beneficial ser- 

 vices would entitle him to some regard from the husbandman, 

 were he not accused, and perhaps not without just cause, of 

 being too partial to the Indian corn, when in that state which 

 is usually called roasting-ears. His visits are indeed rather 

 frequent about this time ; and the farmer, suspecting what is 

 going on, steals through among the rows with his gun, bent 

 on vengeance, and forgetful of the benevolent sentiment of 

 the poet that 



" Just as wide of justice he must fall 



Who thinks all made for One, not one for all." 



But farmers, in general, are not much versed in poetry, and 

 pretty well acquainted with the value of corn, from the hard 

 labor requisite in raising it. 



In rambling through the woods one day, says Wilson, I 

 happened to shoot at one of these birds, and wounded him 

 slightly in the wing. Finding him in full feather, and seem- 



