50 RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER. 



thers just touch, coincide, and form heart-shaped spots; a narrow 

 sword-shaped line of white runs up the exterior side of the shafts 

 of the same feathers; the next four feathers, on each side, are 

 black, the outer edges of the exterior ones barred with black 

 and white, which, on the lower side, seems to cross the whole 

 vane as in the figure; the extremities of the whole tail, except 

 the outer feather, are black, sometimes touched with yellowish 

 or cream colour; the legs and feet are of a bluish green, and the 

 iris of the eye red. The tongue, or os hyoides, passes up over 

 the hind-head, and is attached by a very elastic retractile mem- 

 brane, to the base of the right nostril; the extremity of the tongue 

 is long, horny, very pointed, and thickly edged with barbs, the 

 other part of the tongue is worm-shaped. In several specimens, 

 I found the stomach nearly filled with pieces of a species of fun- 

 gus, that grows on decayed wood, and in all with great numbers 

 of insects, seeds, gravel, &c. &c. The female differs from the 

 male, in having the crown, for an inch, of a fine ash, and the 

 black not so intense; the front is reddish as in the male, and 

 the whole hind-head, down to the back, likewise of the same 

 rich red as his. In the bird, from which this latter description 

 was taken, I found a large cluster of minute eggs, to the number 

 of fifty or upwards, in the beginning of the month of March. 



This species inhabits a large extent of country, in all of which 

 it seems to be resident, or nearly so. I found them abundant in 

 Upper Canada, and in the northern parts of the state of New 

 York, in the month of November; they also inhabit the whole 

 Atlantic states as far as Georgia, and the southern extremity of 

 Florida; as well as the interior parts of the United States, as far 

 west as Chilicothe, in the state of Ohio, and, according to JBuffon, 

 Louisiana. They are said to be the only Woodpeckers found 

 in Jamaica; though I question whether this be correct; and to 

 be extremely fond of the capsicum, or Indian pepper.* They 

 are certainly much hardier birds, and capable of subsisting on 

 coarser, and more various fare, and of sustaining a greater de- 



* Sloane. 



