SPEC IE S3. PICUS AURJ1TUS. 

 GOLDEN-WINGED WOODPECKER. 



[Plate III. Fig. 1.] 



Le Pic aux ailes dortes, BUFFON, VH, 39. PL Enl. 693. Picus 

 auratus, LINN. Syst. 174. Cuculus alls de auratis, KLEIN, p. 

 30. CATESBY, i, 18. LATHAM, n, 597. BARTHAM, p. 289.- 

 PEALE'S Museum, No. 1938.* 



THIS elegant bird is well known to our farmers and junior 

 sportsmen, who take every opportunity of destroying him; the 

 former for the supposed trespasses he commits on their Indian 

 corn, or the trifle he will bring in market, and the latter for the 

 mere pleasure of destruction, and perhaps for the flavour of his 

 flesh, which is in general esteem. In the state of Pennsylvania 

 he can scarcely be called a bird of passage, as even in severe win- 

 ters they may be found within a few miles of the city of Phila- 

 delphia; and I have known them exposed for sale in market every 

 week during the months of November, December and January, 

 and that too in more than commonly rigorous weather. They, 

 no doubt, partially migrate, even here; being much more nu- 

 merous in spring and fall than in winter. Early in the month 

 of April they begin to prepare their nest, which is built in the 

 hollow body or branch of a tree, sometimes, though not always, 

 at a considerable height from the ground; for I have frequently 

 known them fix on the trunk of an old apple-tree, at not more 

 than six feet from the root. The sagacity of this bird in dis- 

 covering, under a sound bark, a hollow limb or trunk of a tree, 

 and its perseverance in perforating it for the purpose of incuba- 



* We add the following synonymes: Cuculus auratus, LINIST. Syst. ed. 10, 

 1, 112. GMEL. Sygt. 1, 430. LATH. Ind. Orn. p. 242. Picus Canadensis stri- 

 atus, BBTSS. 4, 72. PENW. ArcL Zool. Ab. 158. 



