RED-IIEADED WOODPECKER. 
177 
of his tongue, and the strength and position of his claws ; as well as 
from his usual habits. In fact, insects form at least two-thirds of his 
subsistence ; and his stomach is scarcely ever found without them. He 
searches for them with a dexterity and intelligence, I may safely say, 
more than human ; he perceives by the exterior appearance of the bark 
where they lurk below ; when he is dubious, he rattles vehemently on the 
outside with his bill, and his acute ear distinguishes the terrified vermin 
shrinking within to their inmost retreats, where his pointed and barbed 
tongue soon reaches them. The masses of bugs, caterpillars, and other 
larvfe, which I have taken from the stomachs of these birds, have often 
surprised me. These larvae, it should be remembered, feed not only on 
the buds, leaves and blossoms, but on the very vegetable life of the tree, 
the alburnum, or newly forming bark and wood ; the consequence is, that 
whole branches, and whole trees, decay, under the silent ravages of these 
destructive vermin ; witness the late destruction of many hundred acres 
of pine-trees in the north-eastern parts of South Carolina ;* and the 
thousands of peach-trees that yearly decay from the same cause. Will 
any one say, that taking half a dozen, or half a hundred, apples from a 
tree, is equally ruinous Avith cutting it down ? or, that the services of a 
useful animal should not be rewarded with a small portion of thut which 
it has contributed to jDreserve ? We are told, in the benevolent language 
of the Scriptures, not to muzzle the mouth of the 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 ; 
though even in the Eastern States, individuals are found during moderate 
winters, as well as in the states of New York and Pennsylvania ; in 
Carolina they are somewhat more numerous during that season ; but 
not one-tenth of what are found in summer. They make their appear- 
ance in Pennsylvania about the first of May ; and leave us about the mid- 
dle of October. They inhabit from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, and 
are also found on the western coast of North America. About the mid- 
dle 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 gray, which has occa- 
* In one place, on a tract of two thousand acres of pine land, on the Sampit 
river, near Georgetown, at least ninety trees in every hundred were destroyed by 
this pernicious insect, a small, black, winged bug, resembling the weevil, but some- 
what longei". 
Vol. L— 12 
