330 THE WOODPECKER. 



with this the tongue is continually moistened, so that every 

 small insect it touches instantly adheres to it. The tail, in 

 its strength and pointedness, as well as the feet and claws, 

 prove that the bird was designed for climbing ; and in fact I 

 have scarcely ever seen it on a tree five minutes at a time 

 without climbing ; hopping not only upwards and down- 

 wards, but spirally ; pursuing and playing with its fellow, in 

 this manner, round the body of the tree. I have also seen 

 them a hundred times alight on the trunk of the tree ; though 

 they more frequently alight on the branches ; but that they 

 climb, construct like nests, lay the same number, and the like 

 colored eggs, and have the manners and habits of the Wood- 

 peckers, is notorious to every American naturalist; while 

 neither in the form of their body, nor any other part, except 

 in the bill being somewhat bent, and the toes placed two be- 

 fore, and two behind, have they the smallest resemblance 

 whatever to the (Juckoo. 



It may not be improper, however, to observe, that there is 

 another species of Woodpecker, called also Golden-winged, 

 which inhabits the country near the Cape of Good Hope, and 

 resembles the present, it is said, almost exactly in the color and 

 form of its bill, and in the tint and markings of its plumage ; 

 with this difference, that the mustaches are red instead of 

 black, and the lower side of the wings, as well as their shafts, 

 are also red, where the other is golden yellow. It is also 

 considerably less. With respect to the habits of this new 

 species, we have no particular account; but there is little 

 doubt that they will be found to correspond with the one we 

 are now describing. 



The abject and degraded character which the count de Buf- 

 fon, with equal eloquence and absurdity, has drawn of the 

 whole tribe of Woodpeckers, belongs not to the elegant and 

 sprightly bird now before us. How far it is applicable to any 

 ot them will be examined hereafter. He is not "constrained 

 to drag out an insipid existence in boring the bark and hard 

 fibres of trees to extract his prey," for he frequently finds in 

 the loose mouldering ruins of an old stump, (the capital of a 



