142 



RED-HEADED WOODPECKER. 

 PICU8 EEYTHliOCEPHALUS, 

 [Plate IX.— Fig. 1.] 



Picus erythrocephalus, Linn. Syst. I, 174, 7. — Gmel. Syst, I, 429. — Pic. noir a domino rouge, 

 BuFFON VII, 55. PL enl 117.— Catesby I, 2Q.—-Arct. ZooL II, No. 160.— Lath. Syn. 

 II, 561.— Pe ale's Museum, No. 1922. 



THERE is perhaps no bird in North America more univer- 

 sally known than this. His tri-colored plumage, red, white, and 

 black glossed with steel blue, is so striking, and characteristic; and 

 his predatory habits in the orchards and corn fields, added to his 

 numbers and fondness for hovering along the fences, so very noto- 

 rious, that almost every child is acquainted with the Red-headed 

 Woodpecker. In the immediate neighbourhood of our large cities, 

 where the old timber is chiefly cut down, he is not so frequently 

 found; and yet at this present time, June, 1808, 1 know of several 

 of their nests within the boundaries of the city of Philadelphia. 

 Two of these are in Button-wood trees (Platanus occidentalis), and 

 another in the decayed limb of an elm. The old ones I observe 

 make their excursions regularly to the woods beyond the Schuyl- 

 kill, about a mile distant; preserving great silence and circumspec- 

 tion in visiting their nests ; precautions not much attended to by 

 them in the depth of the woods, because there the prying eye of 

 man is less to be dreaded. Towards the mountains particularly 

 in the vicinity of creeks and rivers, these birds are extremely abun- 

 dant, especially in the latter end of summer. Wherever you travel 

 in the interior at that season, you hear them screaming from the 

 adjoining woods, rattling on the dead limbs of trees, or on the 

 fences, where they are perpetually seen flitting from stake to stake 



