RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER. u$ 



side of the Deck, are a pale buff colour, which, on the breast 

 and belly, deepens into a yellowish ash, stained on the belly 

 with a blood red ; the vent and thigh feathers are dull white, 

 marked down their centres with heart-formed and long 

 arrow-pointed spots of black. The back is black, crossed 

 with transverse curving lines of white; the wings are also 

 black ; the lesser wing-coverts circularly tipt, and the whole 

 primaries and secondaries beautifully crossed with bars of 

 white, and also tipt with the same ; the rump is white, 

 interspersed with touches of black ; the tail-coverts, white 

 near their extremities ; the tail consists of ten feathers, the 

 two middle ones black, their interior webs or vanes white, 

 crossed with diagonal spots of black ; these, when the edges 

 of the two feathers just touch, coincide and form heart- 

 shaped spots ; a narrow sword -shaped line of white runs 

 up the exterior side of the shafts of the same feathers ; the 

 next four feathers on each side are black ; the outer edges 

 of the exterior ones, barred with black and white, which, 

 on the lower side, seems to cross the whole vane, as in the 

 figure ; the extremities of the whole tail, except the outer 

 feather, are black, sometimes touched with yellowish or 

 cream colour ; the legs and feet are of a bluish green, and 

 the iris of the eye red. The tongue, or os hyoides, passes up 

 over the hind head, and is attached, by a very elastic retractile 

 membrane, to the base of the right nostril ; the extremity 

 of the tongue is long, horny, very pointed, and thickly edged 

 with barbs ; the other part of the tongue is worm-shaped. 

 In several specimens, I found the stomach nearly filled with 

 pieces of a species of fungus that grows on decayed wood,* 

 and, in all, with great numbers of insects, seeds, gravel, &c. 

 The female differs from the male in having the crown, for 

 an inch, of a fine ash, and the black not so intense ; the 

 front is reddish, as in the male, and the whole hind head, down 



* Most probably swallowed with the insects which infest and are 

 nourished in the various Boleti polypori, &c. ; but forming no part of their 

 real food. — Ed. 



