YELLOW-BELLIED WOODPECKER. 101 
Paupastaow;* they are also common in the states of Kentucky and Ohio, 
‘and have been seen in the neighborhood of St. Louis. They are reck- 
oned by Georgi among the birds that frequent the Lake Baikal, in 
Asia ;+ but their existence there has not been satisfactorily ascertained. 
The habits of this species are similar to those of the Hairy and 
Downy Woodpeckers, with which it generally associates. The 
only nest of this bird which I have met with, was in the body of 
an old pear-tree, about ten or eleven feet from the ground. The 
hole was almost exactly circular, small for the size of the bird, so that 
it crept in and out with difficulty; but suddenly widened, descending 
by a small angle, and then running downward about fifteen inches. 
On the smooth, solid wood lay four white eggs. This was about the 
twenty-fifth of May. Having no opportunity of visiting it afterwards, 
I cannot say whether it added any more eggs to the number; I rather 
think it did not, as it appeared at that time to be sitting. 
The Yellow-bellied Woodpecker is eight inches and a half long, and 
in extent fifteen inches; whole crown, a rich and deep scarlet, bordered 
with black on each side, and behind forming a slight crest, which it 
frequently erects;t from the nostrils, which are thickly covered with 
recumbent hairs, a narrow strip of white runs downward, curving round 
the breast; mixing with the yellowish white on the lower part of the 
breast ; throat, the same deep scarlet as the crown, bordered with black, 
proceeding from the lower mandible on each side, and spreading into 
a broad, rounding patch on the breast; this black, in birds of the first 
and second year, is dusky gray, the feathers being only crossed with 
circular touches of black; a line of white, and below it another of 
black, proceed, the first from the upper part of the eye, the other from 
the posterior half of the eye, and both lose themselves on the neck 
and back; back, dusky yellow, sprinkled and elegantly waved with 
black; wings, black, with a large, oblong spot of white ; the primaries, 
tipped and spotted with white; the three secondaries next the body 
are also variegated with white; rump, white, bordered with black; 
belly, yellow; sides under the wings, more dusky yellow, marked with 
long arrow-heads of black; legs and feet, greenish blue; tail, black, 
consisting of ten feathers, the two outward feathers on each side 
tipped with white, the next totally black, the fourth edged on its inner 
vane half way down with white, the middle one white on its interior 
vane, and spotted with black; tongue, flat, horny for half an inch at 
the tip, pointed, and armed along its sides with reflected barbs; the 
other extremities of the tongue pass up behind the skull in a groove, 
and end near the right nostril; in birds of the first and second year 
they reach only to the crown; bill, an inch long, channeled, wedge- 
formed at the tip, and of a dusky horn color. The female is marked 
nearly as the male, but wants the scarlet on the throat, which is 
whitish ; she is also darker under the wings and on the sides of the 
breast. The young of the first season, of both sexes, in October, have 
the crown sprinkled with black and deep scarlet; the scarlet on the 
throat may be also observed in the young males. The principal food 
of these birds is insects ; and they seem particularly fond of frequent- 
* LATHAM. t Ibid. 
¢ This circumstance seems to have been overlooked by naturalists. 
* 
