MOCKING BIRD. 107 
the husbandman, and which even promote the fertility of the tree 
and, in return, are proscribed by those who ought to haye been their 
protectors, and incitements and rewards held out for their destruction ! 
Let us examine better into the operations of nature, and many of our 
mistaken opinions and groundless prejudices will be abandoned for 
more just, enlarged, and humane modes of thinking. 
The length of the Downy Woodpecker is six inches and three 
quarters, and its extent twelve inches; crown, black; hind head, deep 
scarlet ; stripe over the eye, white; nostrils, thickly covered with re- 
cumbent hairs, or smal] feathers, of a cream color; these, as in the 
preceding species, are thick and bushy, as if designed to preserve the 
forehead from injury during the violent action of digging; the back is 
black, and divided by a lateral strip of white, loose, downy, unwebbed 
feathers; wings, black, spotted with white ; tail-coverts, rump, and 
four middle feathers of the tail, black; the other three on each side, 
white, crossed with touches of black; whole under parts, as well as 
the sides of the neck, white; the latter marked with a streak of black, 
proceeding from the lower mandible, exactly as in the Hairy Wood- 
pecker ; legs and feet, bluish green; claws, light blue, tipped with 
black; tongue formed like that of the preceding species, horny to- 
wards the tip, where, for one eighth of an inch, it is barbed; bill, of 
a bluish horn color, grooved, and wedge-formed, like most of the 
genus; eye, dark hazel. The female wants the red on the hind head, 
having that part white; and the breast and belly are ofa dirty white. 
This, and the two former species, are generally denominated Sap- 
suckers. They have also several other provincial appellations, equally 
absurd, which it may, perhaps, be more proper to suppress than to 
sanction by repeating. 
MOCKING BIRD.—TURDUS POLYGLOTTUS. — Fie. 39. 
Mimic Thrush, Lath. Syn. iii. p. 40, No. 42.— Arct. Zool. ii. No. 194. — Turdus 
poly sere, Lin. Syst. i, p. 293, No. 10.—Le grand moqueur, Briss. Orn. ii. 
he 6, 29.— Buff. Ois. iii. p. 325, Pl. enl. 558, Fig. 1. — Singing Bird, Mockin 
ird, or Ni tingle, Ruii Syn. p. 64, No. 5, p. 185, 31. — Sloan. Jam. ii. 306, 
No. 34.— The Mock Bird, Catesb. Car. i. pl. 27.— Peale’s Museum, No. 5288. 
ORPHEUS POLYGLOTTUS. —Swainson. 
Turdus polyglottus, Bonap, Synop. p. 74.— The Mocking Bird, Aud. pl. xxi Orn 
Biog. 108. 
Tus celebrated and very extraordinary bird, in extent and variety 
of vocal powers, stands unrivalled by the whole feathered songsters 
of this, or perhaps any other country, and shall 1eceive from us, in 
this place, all that attention and respect which superior merit is 
justly entitled to. 
Among the many novelties which the discovery of this part of the 
western continent first brought into notice, we may reckon that of the 
