SPOTTED INDIAN WOODPECKER. 
Woodpecker is the English general ap- 
pellation, for a genus of birds of the Pious 
kind, of which there are numerous varieties, 
some of them in aUnost every part of the 
world. They all subsist entirely on ants and 
other inseiSls; and their principal action is 
that of climbing up and down the trunks or 
boughs of trees, for the purpose of procuring 
their food. They have a long slender tongue, 
armed with a sharp bony point barbed on each 
side ; this, assisted by a curious apparatus of 
muscles, they can exert at pleasure, darting it 
to a great length into the clefts of the bark, 
where they transfix, and instantly extra6l, the 
concealed insecls. They arc also said to bore 
holes, with their bills, in hollow rotten trees; 
as well to come at the inse6ls within, as to de- 
posit their own eggs. 
These are habits which may, in a general 
^iew, be considered as common to the whole 
kind. There are, however, some exceptions; 
particularly, with rcspedl to tke Woodpeckers 
ol" 
