GOL,1>-WINGED WOODPECKER Colaptes auratus. 



toughest substances with the best of appetites, and have been known to render a boat 

 unsafe for sea, in spite of the strong flavour of salt water, pitch, and tar, with which sea- 

 faring boats are so liberally imbued. 



It is a brisk, lively, and playful creature, skipping about the trunks of trees with great 

 activity, and "hopping not only upwards and downwards, but spirally, pursuing and 

 playing with its fellow in this manner round the body of the tree." I may here mention 

 that I never yet saw an English Woodpecker hop down the tree's trunk. Like others of 

 its race, it is fond of varying its insect diet with a little vegetable food, eating various 

 fruits, the Indian corn, the wild cherries, and the sour gum and cedar berries. 



The Gold-winged Woodpecker seems to be readily tamed, as may be seen from the 

 following account by Wilson. 



" In rambling through the woods one day, I happened to shoot one of these birds and 

 wounded him slightly in the wing. Finding him in full feather, and seemingly but little 

 hurt, I took him home and put him into a large cage made of willows, intending to keep 

 him in my own room, that we might become better acquainted. 



As soon as he found himself inclosed on all sides, he lost no time in idle fluttering; 

 but throwing himself against the bars of the cage, began instantly to demolish the willows, 

 battering them with great vehemence, and uttering a loud piteous kind of cackling, similar to 

 that of a hen when she is alarmed and takes to wing. Poor Baron Trenck never laboured 

 with more eager diligence at the walls of his prison than this son of the forest in his exertions 

 for liberty ; and he exercised his powerful bill with such force, digging into the sticks, 

 seizing and shaking them from side to side, that he soon opened for himself a passage, and 

 though I repeatedly repaired the breach, and barricaded every opening in the best manner 

 I could, yet, on my return into the room, I always found him at large, climbing up the 

 chairs, or running about the floor, where, from the dexterity of his motions, moving 

 backwards, forwards, and sideways with the same facility, it became difficult to get hold 

 of him again. 



Having placed him in a strong wire cage, he seemed to give up all hopes of making his 

 escape, and soon became very tame ; fed on young ears of Indian corn, refused apples, but 

 ate the berries of the sour gum greedily, small winter grapes, and several other kinds of 

 berries, exercised himself frequently in climbing, or rather hopping perpendicularly along 



