i5o 



RED-HEADED WOODPECKER. 



larvae, it should be remembered, feed not only on the buds, 

 leaves, and blossoms, but on the very vegetable life of the 

 tree, — the alburnum, or newly forming bark and wood ; the 

 consequence is, that whole branches and whole trees decay 

 under the silent ravages of these destructive vermin ; witness 

 the late destruction of many hundred acres of pine trees in 

 the northeastern parts of South Carolina ; * and the thousands 

 of peach trees that yearly decay from the same cause. Will 

 any one say, that taking half a dozen, or half a hundred, 

 apples from a tree, is equally ruinous with cutting it down ? 

 or, that the services of a useful animal should not be rewarded 

 with a small portion of that which it has contributed to 

 preserve ? We are told, in the benevolent language of the 

 Scriptures, not to muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth 

 out the corn ; and why should not the same generous libera- 

 lity be extended to this useful family of birds, which forms so 

 powerful a phalanx against the inroads of many millions of 

 destructive vermin ? 



The red-headed woodpecker is, properly speaking, a bird 

 of passage ; though, even in the eastern States, individuals 

 are found during moderate winters, as well as in the States of 

 New York and Pennsylvania ; in Carolina, they are somewhat 

 more numerous during that season, but not one-tenth of what 

 are found in summer. They make their appearance in 

 Pennsylvania about the 1st of May, and leave us about the 

 middle of October. They inhabit from Canada to the Gulf of 

 Mexico, and are also found on the western coast of North 

 America. About the middle of May they begin to construct 

 their nests, which, like the rest of the genus, they form in the 

 body or large limbs of trees, taking in no materials, but 

 smoothing it within to the proper shape and size. The female 

 lays six eggs, of a pure white, and the young make their first 



* In one place, on a tract of two thousand acres of pine land, on the 

 Sampit River, near Georgetown, at least ninety trees in every hundred 

 were destroyed by this pernicious insect, — a small, black-winged bug, 

 resembling the weevil, but somewhat larger. 



