GOLD-WINGED WOODPECKER. 



45 



truly surprising; the male and female alternately relieving 

 and encouraging each other, by mutual caresses, renewing 

 their labours for several days, till the object is attained, and 

 the place rendered sufficiently capacious, convenient, and 

 secure. At this employtnent they are so extremely intent, 

 that they may be heard till a very late hour in the evening, 

 thumping like carpenters. I have seen an instance where 

 they had dug first five inches straight forward, and then 

 downward more than twice that distance, through a solid 

 black oak. They carry in no materials for their nest, the soft 

 chips and dust of the wood serving for this purpose. The 

 female lays six white eggs, almost transparent, very thick at 

 the greater end, and tapering suddenly to the other. The 

 young early leave the nest, and, climbing to the higher 

 branches, are there fed by their parents. 



The food of this bird varies with the season. As the com- 

 mon cherries, bird cherries, and berries of the sour gum succes- 

 sively ripen, he regales plentifully on them, particularly on 

 the latter; but the chief food of this species, or that which is 

 most usually found in his stomach, is wood lice, and the young 

 and larvae of ants, of which he is so immoderately fond, that 

 I have frequently found his stomach distended with a mass of 

 these, and these only, as large nearly as a plumb. For the 

 procuring of these insects, nature has remarkably fitted him : 

 the bills of woodpeckers, in general, are straight, grooved, or 

 channelled, wedge-shaped, and compressed to a thin edge at 

 the end, that they may the easier penetrate the hardest wood ; 

 that of the gold-winged woodpecker is long, slightly bent, 

 ridged only on the top, and tapering almost to a point, yet 

 still retaining a little of the wedge form there. Both, how- 

 ever, are admirably adapted for the peculiar manner each has 

 of procuring its food. The former, like a powerful wedge, to 

 penetrate the dead and decaying branches, after worms and 

 insects ; the latter, like a long and sharp pickaxe, to dig up 

 the hillocks of pismires that inhabit old stumps in prodigious 

 multitudes. These beneficial services would entitle him to 



