174 GOLDEN-WINGED WOODPECKER. 



acterized as follows : " transversely striate with black and gray ; chin 

 and breast black ; does not climb trees;"* which is just as correct as if, 

 in describing the human species, we should say — skin striped with black 

 and green ; cheeks blue ; chin orange ; never walks on foot, &c. The 

 pages of natural history should resemble a faithful mirror, in which 

 mankind may recognise the true images of the living originals ; instead 

 of which we find this department of them, too often, like the hazy and 

 rough medium of wretched window-glass, through whose crooked pro- 

 tuberances everything appears so strangely distorted, that one scarcely 

 knows his most intimate neighbors and acquaintance. 



The Golden-winged Woodpecker has the back and wings above of a 

 dark umber, transversely marked with equidistant streaks of black ; 

 upper part of the head an iron gray ; cheeks and parts surrounding the 

 eyes, a fine cinnamon color ; from the lower mandible a strip of black, 

 an inch in length, passes down each side of the throat, and a lunated 

 spot, of a vivid blood red, covers the hindhead, its two points reaching 

 within half an inch of each eye ; the sides of the neck, below this, in- 

 cline to a bluish gray ; throat and chin a very light cinnamon or fawn 

 color ; the breast is ornamented with a broad crescent of deep black ; 

 the belly and vent white, tinged with yellow, and scattered with innu- 

 merable round spots of black, every feather having a distinct central 

 spot, those on the thighs and vent being heart-shaped and largest ; the 

 lower or inner side of the wing and tail, shafts of all the larger feathers, 

 and indeed of almost every feather, are of a beautiful golden yellow — 

 that on the shafts of the primaries being very distinguishable, even when 

 the wings are shut ; the rump is white, and remarkably prominent ; the 

 tail-coverts white, and curiously serrated with black ; upper side of the 

 tail, and the tip below, black, edged with light loose filaments of a cream 

 color, the two exterior feathers serrated with whitish ; shafts black 

 towards the tips, the two middle ones nearly wholly so ; bill an inch and 

 a half long, of a dusky horn color, somewhat bent, ridged only on the 

 top, tapering, but not to a point, that being a little wedge-formed ; legs 

 and feet light blue ; iris of the eye hazel ; length twelve inches, extent 

 twenty. The female difi"ers from the male chiefly in the greater obscurity 

 of the fine colors, and in wanting the black moustaches on each side 

 of the throat. This description, as well as the drawing, was taken from 

 a very beautiful and perfect specimen. 



Though this species, generally speaking, is migratory, yet they often 

 remain with us in Pennsylvania during the whole winter. They also in- 

 habit the continent of North America, from Hudson's Bay to Georgia ; 

 and have been found by voyagers on the northwest coast of America. 

 They arrive at Hudson's Bay in April, and leave it in September. Mr. 



* Turton's Linnseus, vol. i., p. 264. 



