50 GOLD-WINGED WOODPECKER. 



nests, lay the same number and the like coloured 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 some- 

 what 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 re- 

 sembles the present, it is said, almost exactly in the colour 

 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 of a 

 whole week. He cannot be said to " lead a mean and gloomy 

 life, without an intermission of labour," 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 companions ; or pursuing and gambol- 

 ling 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" 

 * Picus cafer, Turton's Linn. 



