46 



GOLD- WINGED WOODPECKER. 



and the place rendered sufficiently capacious, convenient and se^ 

 cure. At this employment 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 forwards, and then downwards more than twice that 

 distance, thro a solid black oak. They carry in no materials for 

 their nest, the soft chips and dust of the wood serving for this pur- 

 pose. The female lays six white eggs, almost transparent. 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 successively 

 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 larvse 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 Golden-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, 

 however, are admirably adapted for the peculiar manner each has 

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

 netrate the dead and decaying branches, after worms and insects; 

 the latter like a long and sharp pick-ax, to dig up the hillocks of 

 pismires, that inhabit old stumps in prodigious multitudes. These 

 beneficial services would entitle him to some regard from the hus- 

 bandman, were he not accused, and perhaps not without just cause, 

 of being too partial to the Indian corn when in that state which is 

 usually called roasting-ears. His visits are indeed rather frequent 



