KED-BELL1ED WOODPECKER. 49 



into a hollow limb, twelve or fifteen inches above where it be- 

 comes solid. This is usually performed early in April. The 

 female lays five eggs, of a pure white, or almost semi-transpa- 

 rent; and the young generally make their appearance towards 

 the latter end of May, or beginning of June, climbing up to the 

 higher parts of the tree, being as yet unable to fly. In this situ- 

 ation they are fed for several days, and often become the prey 

 of the Hawks. From seeing the old ones continuing their ca- 

 resses after this period, I believe that they often, and perhaps 

 always, produce two broods in a season. During the greater 

 part of the summer, the young have the ridge of the neck and 

 head of a dull brownish ash; and a male of the third year has 

 received his complete colours. 



The Red-bellied Woodpecker is ten inches in length, and 

 seventeen in extent; the bill is nearly an inch and a half in 

 length, wedged at the point., but not quite so much grooved as 

 some others, strong, and of a bluish black colour; the nostrils 

 are placed in one of these grooves, and covered with curving 

 tufts of light brown hairs, ending in black points; the feathers 

 on the front stand more erect than usual, and are of a dull yel- 

 lowish red; from thence along the whole upper part of the head 

 and neck, down the back, and spreading round to the shoulders, 

 is of the most brilliant golden glossy red ; the- whole cheeks, 

 line over the eye, and under side of the neck, is a pale buff 

 colour, which on the breast and belly deepens into a yellowish 

 ash, stained on the belly with a blood red; the vent and thigh 

 feathers are dull white, marked down their centres with heart- 

 formed, and long arrow-pointed, spots of black. The back is 

 black, crossed with transverse curving lines of white; the wings 

 are also black, the lesser wing-coverts circularly tipt, and the 

 whole primaries and secondaries beautifully crossed with bars 

 of white, and also tipt with the same; the rump is white, inter- 

 spersed with touches of black; the tail-coverts white near their 

 extremities; the tail consists of ten feathers, the two middle 

 ones black, their interior webs or vanes white, crossed with 

 diagonal spots of black; these, when the edges of the two fea- 



VOL. II. G 



