172 
GOLDEN-WINGED WOODPECKER. 
bill, and that, as been before observed, is still a little wedge-formed at 
the point, it differs in no one characteristic from the rest of its genus. 
Its nostrils are covered with tufts of recumbent hairs or small feathers ; 
its tongue is round, worm-shaped, flattened towards the tip, pointed, and 
furnished with minute barbs ; it is also long, missile, and can be 
instantaneously protruded to an uncommon distance. The os hyoides, or 
internal parts of the tongue, like those of its tribe, is a substance for 
strength and elasticity reseml)ling whalebone, divided into two branches, 
each the thickness of a knitting-needle, that pass, one on each side of the 
neck, to the hind-head, where they unite, and run up along the skull in 
a groove, covered with a thin membrane or sheath ; descend into the 
upper mandible by the right side of the right nostril, and reach to 
within half an inch of the point of the bill, to which they are attached 
by another extremely elastic membrane, that yields when the tongue is 
thrown out, and contracts as it is retracted. In the other Woodpeckers 
we behold the same apparatus, differing a little in different species. In 
some these cartilaginous substances reach only to the top of the cranium ; 
in others they reach to the nostril ; and in one species they are wound 
round the bone of the right eye, Avhich projects considerably more than 
the left for its accommodation. 
The tongue of the Golden-winged Woodpecker, like the others, is also 
supplied with a viscid fluid, secreted by two glands, that lie under the ear 
on each side, and are at least five times larger in this species than in any 
other of its size ; with this the tongue is continually moistened, so that 
every small insect it touches instantly adheres to it. The tail, in its 
strength and pointedness, as well as the feet and claws, prove that the 
bird was designed for climbing ; and in fact I have scarcely ever seen it 
on a tree five minutes at a time without climbing ; hopping not only up- 
wards and downwards, but spirally ; pursuing and playing with its fellow, 
in this manner, round the body of the tree. I have also seen them a 
hundred times alight on the trunk of the tree ; though they more fre- 
quently alight on the branches ; but that they climb, construct like nests, 
lay the same number, and the like colored eggs, and have the manners 
and habits of the Woodpeckers, is notorious to every American natural- 
ist ; while neither in the form of their body, nor any other part, except 
in the bill being somewhat bent, and the toes placed two before, and two 
behind, have they the smallest resemblance whatever to the Cuckoo. 
It may not be improper, however, to observe, that there is another 
species of Woodpecker, called also Golden-Winged,* which inhabits the 
country near the Cape of Good Hope, and resembles the present, it is 
said, almost exactly in the color and form of its bill, and in the tint and 
markings of its plumage ; with this difference, that the moustaches are 
* Picus cafer, Turton's Linn. 
