GOLD-WINGED WOODPECKER. 33 
those of its tribe, is a substance for strength and elasticity resembling 
whalebone, divided into two branches, each the thickness of a knitting 
needle, that pass, one on each side of the neck, to the hind head, 
where they unite, and run up along the skull in a groove, covered with 
a thin membrane, or sheath; descend into the upper mandible by the 
right side of the right nostril, and reach to within half an inch of the 
point of the bill, to which they are attached by another extremely 
elastic membrane, that yields when the tongue is thrown out, and 
contracts as it is retracted. In the other Woodpeckers we behold the 
same apparatus, differing a little in different species. In some, these 
cartilaginous substances reach only to the top of the cranium; in 
others, they reach to the nostril; and in one species they are wound 
round the bone of the right eye, which projects considerably more 
than the left for its accommodation. 
The tongue of the Gold-winged Woodpecker, like the others, is 
also supplied with a viscid fluid, secreted by two glands that lie 
under the ear on each side, and are at least five times larger in this 
species than in any other of its size; with this the tongue is continu- 
ally moistened, so that every small insect it touches instantly adheres 
toit. The tail, in its strength and pointedness, as well as the feet 
and claws, prove that the bird was designed for climbing; and in 
fact I have scarcely ever seen it on a tree five minutes at a time 
without climbing; hopping not only upward and downward, but 
spirally; pursuing and playing with its fellow in this manner round 
the body of the tree. I have also seen them a hundred times alight 
on the trunk of the tree, though they more frequently alight on the 
‘branches; but that they climb, construct like nests, lay the same 
number and the like-colored eggs, and have the manners and habits 
of the Woodpeckers, is notorious to every American naturalist; 
while neither in the form of their body, nor any other part, except in 
the bill being somewhat bent, and the toes placed two before and two 
behind, have they the smallest resemblance whatever to the Cuckoo. 
It may not be improper, however, to observe, that there is another 
species of Woodpecker, called also Gold-winged,* which inhabits the 
country near the Cape of Good Hope, and resembles the present, it is 
said, almost exactly in the color and form of its bill, and in the tint 
and markings of its plumage, with this difference, that the mustaches 
are red, instead of black, and the lower side of the wings, as well as 
their shafts, are also red, where the other is golden yellow. It is also 
considerably less. With respect to the habits of this new species, 
we have no particular account; but there is little doubt that they 
will be found to correspond with the one we are now describing. 
The abject and degraded character which the Count de Buffon, 
with equal eloquence and absurdity, has drawn of the whole tribe of 
Woodpeckers, belongs not to the elegant and sprightly bird now 
before us. How far it is applicable to any of them will be examined 
hereafter. He is not “constrained to drag out an insipid existence in 
boring the bark and hard fibres of trees to extract his prey,” for he 
frequently finds in the loose, mouldering ruins of an old stump (the 
capital of a nation of pismires) more than is sufficient for the wants 
* Picus cafer, Turton’s Linn. 
