BIRDS OF KANSAS. 327 



spotted with black. Male with red terminating the white feathers on the nape. 

 Young with whole top of head red." 



Stretch of 

 Length. wing. Wing. Tail. Tarsus. Bill. 



. Male 6.60 11.75 3.65 2.55 .65 .69 



Female . . . 6.50 11.60 3.55 2.40 .65 .67 



Iris dark brown; bill slate blue; legs, feet and claws pale blue. 



These restless, energetic little Woodpeckers are very similar 

 in their actions and habits to the Hairy, but more social and less 

 fearful of man. Wilson says: 



/ 



"The principal characteristics of this little bird are diligence, 

 familiarity, perseverance, and strength and energy in the head 

 and muscles of the neck which are truly astonishing. Mounted 

 on the infected branch of an old apple tree, where insects have 

 lodged their corroding and destructive brood in crevices be- 

 tween the bark and wood, he labors sometimes for half an 

 hour incessantly at the same spot before he has succeeded in 

 dislodging and destroying them. At these times you may walk 

 up pretty close to the tree, and even stand immediately below 

 it, within five or six feet of the bird, without in the least em- 

 barrassing him. The strokes of his bill are distinctly heard 

 several hundred yards off, and I have known him to be at work 

 for two hours together on the same tree. Buffon calls this 

 'incessant toil and slavery,' their attitude 'a painful posture,' 

 and their life 'a dull and insipid existence' expressions im- 

 proper because untrue, and absurd because contradictory. The 

 posture is that for which the whole organization of his frame is 

 particularly adapted, and though to a Wren or a Hummingbird 

 the labor would be toil and slavery, yet to him it is, I am con- 

 vinced, as pleasant and amusing as the sports of the chase to 

 the hunter, or the sucking of flowers to the Hummingbird. 

 The eagerness with which he traverses the upper and lower 

 sides of the branches, the cheerfulness of his cry and the liveli- 

 ness of his motions while digging in the tree and dislodging the 

 vermin, justifies this belief. He has a single note, or 'Chink,' 

 which, like the former species, he frequently repeats; and when 

 he flies off or alights on another tree, he utters a rather shriller 

 cry, composed of nearly the same kind of a note, quickly reit- 



