34 GOLD-WINGED WOODPECKER. 
of a whole week. He cannot be said to “lead a mean and gloomy 
life, withoit an intermission of labor,” who usually feasts by the first 
peep of dawn, and spends the early and sweetest hours of morning 
on the highest peaks of the tallest trees, calling on his mate or com- 
panions ; or pursuing and gamboling with them round the larger 
limbs and body of the tree for hours together ; for such are really his 
habits. Can it be said, that “necessity never grants an interval of 
sound repose” to that bird, who, while other tribes are' exposed to all 
the peltings of the midnight storm, lodges dry and secure in a snug 
chamber of his own constructing? or that “the narrow circumference 
of a tree circumscribes his dull round of life,” who, as seasons and 
inclination inspire; roams from the frigid to the torrid zone, feasting on 
\the abundance of various regions? Or is it a proof that “ his appe- 
tite is never softened by delicacy of taste,” because he so often varies 
his bill of fare, occasionally preferring to animal food the rich milki- 
ness of young Indian corn, and the wholesome and nourishing berries 
of the wild cherry, sour gum, and red cedar? Let the reader turn to 
the faithful representation of him given in Fig. 8, and say whether 
his looks be “sad and melancholy.” It is truly ridiculous and aston- 
ishing that such absurdities should escape the lips or pen of one so 
able to do justice to the respective merits of every species; but 
Buffon had too often a favorite theory to prop up, that led him in- 
sensibly astray; and so, forsooth, the whole family of Woodpeckers 
must look sad, sour, and be miserable, to satisfy the caprice of a 
whimsical philosopher, who takes it into his head that they are, and 
ought to be so! 
But the count is not the only European who has misrepresented 
and traduced this beautiful bird. One has given him brown legs;* 
another a yellow neck ;+ a third has declared him a Cuckoo;{ and, 
in an English translation of Linneus’s System of Nature, lately 
published, he is characterized as follows: “Body, striated with black 
and gray; cheeks, red; chin, black; never climbs on 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 re- 
semble a faithful mirror, in which mankind may recognize the true 
images of the living originals; instead of which, we find this depart- 
ment of them too often like the hazy and rough medium of wretched 
window-glass, through whose crooked protuberances every thing 
appears so strangely distorted, that one scarcely knows their most 
intimate neighbors and acquaintances. 
The Gold-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 hind head, its two 
points reaching within half an inch of each eye; the sides of the 
* See Encyc. Brit. art. Picus. + Latham. { Klein. 
§ P. griseo amarodie transversim s.tiatus truncos arborum non scandit.— 
Ind. Orn. vol. i. p. 242. 
