20 GOLDEN-WINGED WOODPECKER. 



tion, are truly surprising; the male and female alternately reliev- 

 ing and encouraging each other by mutual caresses, renewing 

 their labours for several days, till the object is attained, and the 

 place rendered sufficiently capacious, convenient and secure. At 

 this employment they are so extremely intent, that they may be 

 heard till a very late hour in the evening, thumping like carpen- 

 ters. I have seen an instance where they had dug first five inches 

 straight forwards, and then downwards more than twice that dis- 

 tance, through a solid black oak. They carry in no materials for 

 their nest, the soft chips, and dust of the wood, serving for this 

 purpose. The female lays six white eggs, almost transparent. 

 The young early leave the nest, and, climbing to the higher 

 branches, are there fed by their parents. 



The food of this bird varies with the season. As the common 

 cherries, bird-cherries, and berries of the sour gum, successively 

 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 remarkably fitted him. The bills of Woodpeckers, 

 in general, are straight, grooved or channelled, wedge-shaped, 

 and compressed to a thin edge at the end, that they may the 

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

 Woodpecker is long, slightly bent, ridged only on the top, and 

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

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

 liar 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 services would en- 

 title him to some regard from the husbandman, were he not ac- 

 cused, and perhaps not without just cause, of being too partial 

 to the Indian corn, when in that state which is usually called 



