556 AVES—WOC DPECKER. 
orchard, or dig a hole in an old stake of a fence. They frequently approach 
the farmhouses and skirts of the town. In Philadelphia, they frequent the 
old willow and poplar trees. Their cry is strong, shrill, and tremulous; 
they have alse a single note or chuck, which they often repeat in an eager 
manner as they hop about and dig in the crevices of the trees. They inhabit 
the continent from Hudson’s Bay to Carolina anc Georgia. This bird is 
nine inches long; the hind head is scarlet mixed with black ; under the bill 
are long hairs thrown forwards and upwards. The back is black, divided 
by a strip of white, the feathers of which resemble hairs ; wings black, spotted 
with white, the under parts are pure white. The great mass of hairs that 
cover the nostril appears to be designed as a protection to the front of the 
head, when the bird is engaged in digging holes in the wood. In flight thesa 
birds sink and rise alternately, uttering a loud tremulous scream as they set 
off and alight. They are hard to kill. 
THE DOWNY WOODPECKER! 
Is the smallest of all, and exactly resembles the former in tints and mark 
ings, and in almost every thing but its diminutive size. Its. principal 
characteristics are diligence, familiarity, and a strength and energy in the 
head and neck, which are truly astonishing. Mounted on the infected 
branch of an old apple tree, where insects have lodged between the bark and 
the wood, he labors sometimes for half an hour incessantly at the same spot, 
till he has succeeded in dislodging them. At these times you may walk 
pretty close to the tree without in the least embarrassing him: the strokes 
of his bill are distinctly heard several hundred yards off; and I have known 
him to work for two hours together on one tree.. He has a single note or 
chink, which he frequently repeats: and when he flies off, he utters a rather 
shriller cry, quickly reiterated. Of all our woodpeckers, none rid the apple- 
trees of so many vermin as this; digging off the moss, and probing every 
srevice. His industry is unequalled, and almost incessant. 
T= ZED-BELLIED WOODPECKER? 
PossessEs all the restless and noisy habits of its tribe. It is more shy than 
the red-headed one. It is also more solitary. It prefers the largest, highs 
timbered woods and tallest decayed. timbers of the forest; seldom appearing 
near the ground, on the fences, or in orchards; yet where the trees have 
been deadened in fields of Indian corn, it is pretty numerous, and it feeds 
~ 
1 Picus pubescens, Lin. 2 Picus Carolinus, Lan. 
