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RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER 



limb, twelve or fifteen inches above where it becomes solid. This 

 is usually performed early in April. The female lays five eggs of 

 a pure white, or almost semi-transparent ; and the young generally 

 make their appearance towards the latter end of May, or beginning 

 of June, climbing up to the higher parts of the tree, being as yet 

 unable to fly. In this situation they are fed for several days, and 

 often become the prey of the Hawks. From seeing the old ones 

 continuing their caresses after this period, I believe that they often, 

 and perhaps always, produce two brood in a season. During the 

 greatest part of the summer the young have the ridge of the neck 

 and head of a dull brownish ash; and a male of the third year has 

 received his complete colors. 



The Red-bellied Woodpecker is ten inches in length, and se- 

 venteen in extent; the bill is nearly an inch and a half in length, 

 wedged at the point, but not quite so much grooved as some others, 

 strong, and of a bluish black color; the nostrils are placed in one 

 of these grooves, and covered with curving tufts of light brown 

 hairs, ending in black points ; the feathers on the front stand more 

 erect than usual, and are of a dull yellowish red ; from thence along 

 the whole upper part of the head and neck down the back and 

 spreading round to the shoulders is of the most brilliant golden 

 glossy red; the whole cheeks, line over the eye, and under side of 

 the neck, is a pale buff color, which on the breast and belly deep- 

 ens into a yellowish ash, stained on the belly with a blood red ; the 

 vent and thigh feathers are dull white, marked down their centers 

 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 ; 



