30 RED-HEADED WOODPECKER. 



one say, that taking half a dozen, or half a hundred, apples from 

 a tree, is equally ruinous with cutting it down? or, that the ser- 

 vices of a useful animal should not be rewarded with a small 

 portion of that which it has contributed to preserve? We are 

 told, in the benevolent language of the Scriptures, not to muz- 

 zle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn; and why 

 should not the same generous liberality be extended to this use- 

 ful family of birds, which forms so powerful a phalanx against 

 the inroads of many millions of destructive vermin. 



The Red-headed Woodpecker is, properly speaking, a bird 

 of passage; though even in the eastern states, individuals are 

 found during moderate winters, as well as in the states of New 

 York and Pennsylvania; in Carolina they are somewhat more 

 numerous during that season; but not one-tenth of what are found 

 in summer. They make their appearance in Pennsylvania about 

 the first of May; and leave us about the middle of October. They 

 inhabit from Canada to the gulf of Mexico, and are also found 

 on the western coast of North America. About the middle of 

 May they begin to construct their nests, which, like the rest of 

 the genus, they form in the body, or large limbs, of trees, taking 

 in no materials, but smoothing it within to the proper shape 

 and size. The female lays six eggs, of a pure white; and the 

 young make their first appearance about the twentieth of June. 

 During the first season, the head and neck of the young birds 

 are blackish gray, which has occasioned some European writers 

 to mistake them for females; the white on the wing is also spot- 

 ted with black; but in the succeeding spring they receive their 

 perfect plumage, and the male and female then differ only in the 

 latter being rather smaller, and her colours not quite so vivid; 

 both have the head and neck deep scarlet; the bill light blue, 

 black towards the extremity, and strong; back, primaries, wing- 

 coverts and tail, black, glossed with steel blue; rump, lower 

 part of the back, secondaries, and whole under parts, from the 

 breast downwards, white; legs and feet bluish green; claws light 

 blue; round the eye a dusky narrow skin, bare of feathers; iris 

 dark hazel; total length nine inches and a half, extent seventeen 



