RED-HEAPED WOODPECKER. 
175 
Hearne, hoAvever, informs us that the " Golden-winged Woodpecker is 
almost the only species of Woodpecker that winters near Hudson's 
Bay." The natives there call it Ou-tliee-quan-nor-oiv, from the golden 
color of the shafts and lower side of the wings. It has numerous pro- 
vincial appellations in the different States of the Union, such as " High- 
hole," from the situation of its nest, and " Hittock," " Yucker," " Piut," 
"Flicker," by which last it is usually known in Pennsylvania. These 
names have probably originated from a fancied resemblance of its notes 
to the sound of the words ; for one of its most common cries consists 
of two notes or syllables, frequently repeated, which, by the help of the 
hearer's imagination, may easily be made to resemble any or all of them. 
Species IV. PICUS ERYTHROCEPHALUS. 
EED-HEADED WOODPECKER. 
[Plate IX. Fig. 1.] 
Plcus erifthroccphalus, Linn. I?!)sf. i., 174, 7. — Gmel. y^ijst. i., 429.— Pic noir & 
domino rouge, Buffon, til, 55. PI. Enl. 117. — Catesby, i., 20. — Arct. Zool. ii., 
No. 160.— Lath. Si/n. ii., 561.* 
There is perhaps no bird in North America more universally 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 notorious, that almost every child is 
acquainted with the Red-headed Woodpecker. In the immediate neigh- 
borhood 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, I 
know of several of their nests, within the boundaries of the city of 
Philadelphia. Two of these are in button-wood trees [Platanus ocei- 
dcntalis), and another in the decayed limb of an elm. The old ones, I 
observe, make their excursions regularly to the woods beyond the 
Schuylkill, about a mile distant ; preserving great silence and circum- 
spection in visiting their nests ; precautions not much attended to by 
them in the de|oths of the Avoods, because there the prying eye of man 
is less to be dreaded. Towards the mountains, particularly in the vicin- 
ity of creeks and rivers, these birds are extremely abundant, especially 
in the latter end of summer. Wherever you travel in the interior, at 
* We add the following synonymes -.—Picus ohsnirus, Gmel. Syst. i., 429, young. 
— Lath. hid. Orn. 228. — Picus Virginianus erythrocc2}Italus, Briss. 4, p. 52. 
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