22 GOLDEN-WINGED WOODPECKER. 



climbing, or rather hopping perpendicularly along the sides of 

 the cage; and as evening drew on, fixed himself in a high hang- 

 ing or perpendicular position, and slept with his head in his 

 wing. As soon as dawn appeared, even before it was light 

 enough to perceive him distinctly across the room, he descended 

 to the bottom of the cage, and began his attack on the ears of 

 Indian corn, rapping so loud as to be heard from every room in 

 the house. After this he would sometimes resume his former 

 position, and take another nap. He was beginning to become 

 very amusing, and even sociable, when, after a lapse of several 

 weeks, he became drooping, and died, as I conceived, from the 

 effects of his wound. 



Some European naturalists, (and among the rest Linnaeus him- 

 self, in his tenth edition of the Systema Naturae, ) have classed 

 this bird with the genus Cuculus, or Cuckoo^ informing their 

 readers that it possesses many of the habits of the Cuckoo; that 

 it is almost always on the ground; is never seen to climb trees 

 like the other Woodpeckers, and that its bill is altogether unlike 

 theirs; every one of which assertions I must say is incorrect, and 

 could have only proceeded from an entire unacquaintance with 

 the manners of the bird. Except in the article of the bill, and 

 that, as has been before observed, is still a little wedge-formed 

 at the point, it differs in no one characteristic from the rest of 

 its genus. Its nostrils are covered with tufts of recumbent hairs 

 or small feathers; its tongue is round, worm-shaped, flattened 

 towards the tip, pointed, and furnished with minute barbs; it is 

 also long, missile, and can be instantaneously protruded to an 

 uncommon distance. The os hyoides, or internal parts of the 

 tongue, like those of its tribe, is a substance for strength and elas- 

 ticity resembling whalebone, divided into two branches, each 

 the thickness of a knitting-needle, that pass, one on each side of 

 the neck, to the hind-head, where they unite, and run up along 

 the scull in a groove, covered with a thin membrane or sheath ; 

 descend into the upper mandible by the right side of the right 

 nostril, and reach to within half an inch of the point of the bill, 

 to which they are attached by another extremely elastic mem- 



