RED-HEADED WOODPECKER. 31 



inches. The figure in the plate was drawn and coloured from a 

 very elegant living specimen. 



Notwithstanding the care which this bird, in common with 

 the rest of its genus, takes to place its young beyond the reach of 

 enemies, within the hollows of trees; yet there is one deadly foe, 

 against whose depredations neither the height of the tree, nor 

 the depth of the cavity, is the least security. This is the Black 

 snake (Coluber constrictor,) who frequently glides up the 

 trunk of the tree, and, like a skulking savage, enters the Wood- 

 pecker's peaceful apartment, devours the eggs or helpless young, 

 in spite of the cries and flutterings of the parents; and, if the 

 place be large enough, coils himself up in the spot they occu- 

 pied, where he will sometimes remain for several days. The 

 eager school-boy, after hazarding his neck to reach the Wood- 

 pecker's hole, at the triumphant moment when he thinks the 

 nestlings his own, and strips his arm, lanching it down into the 

 cavity, and grasping what he conceives to be the callow young, 

 starts with horror at the sight of a hideous snake, and almost 

 drops from his giddy pinnacle, retreating down the tree with 

 terror and precipitation. Several adventures of this kind have 

 come to my knowledge; and one of them that was attended with 

 serious consequences; where both snake and boy fell to the 

 ground; and a broken thigh, and long confinement, cured the 

 adventurer completely of his ambition for robbing Wood- 

 pecker's nests. 



