RED-HEADED WOODPECKER 



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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 be- 

 nevolent language of the Scriptures, not to muzzle the mouth of 

 th-. ox that treadeth out the corn ; and why should not the same 

 generous liberality 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 ; tho even in the eastern states individuals are found during 

 moderate winters, as well as in the states of New York and Penn- 

 sylvania; 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 first of May; and 

 kave 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 appearance about 

 the twentieth of June. During the first season the head and neck 

 of the young birds are blackish grey, which has occasioned some 

 European writers to mistake them for females; the white on the 

 wing is also spotted with black; but in the succeeding spring they 

 receive their perfect plumage, and the male and female then differ 

 only in the latter being rather smaller, and its colors not quite so 

 vivid; both have the head and neck deep scarlet; the bill light 

 blue, black towards the extremity, and strong; back, primaries, 

 wing coverts and tail black, glossed with steel blue ; rump, lower 

 part of the back, secondaries, and whole under parts from the 

 breast downwards white; legs and feet bluish green; claws light 

 blue; round the eye a dusky narrow skin, bare of feathers; irig 



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