178 
RED-HEADED WOODPECKER. 
sioned 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 her 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 nar- 
row skin, bare of feathers ; iris dark hazel ; total length nine inches 
and a half, extent seventeen inches. The figure in the plate was drawn 
and colored from a very elegant living specimen. 
Notwithstanding the care which this bird, in common with the rest of 
its genus, takes to place its young beyond the reach of enemies, within 
the hollows of trees ; yet there is one deadly foe, against whose depre- 
dations neither the height of the tree, nor the depth of the cavity, is 
the least security. This is the Black Snake {^Coluber consb'ictor)^ who 
frequently glides up the trunk of the tree, and, like a skulking savage, 
enters the Woodpecker's peaceful apartment, devours the eggs or help- 
less young, in spite of the cries and flutterings of the parents ; and, if 
the place be large enough, coils himself up in the spot they occupied, 
where he will sometimes remain for several days. The eager school-boy, 
after hazarding his neck to reach the Woodpecker's hole, at the triumph- 
ant moment when he thinks the nestlings his own, and strips his arm, 
lanching it down into the cavity, and grasping what he conceives to be 
the callow young, starts with horror at the sight of a hideous snake, 
and almost drops from his giddy pinnacle, retreating down the tree with 
terror and precipitation. Several adventures of this kind have come 
to my knowledge ; and one of them that was attended with serious con- 
sequences ; where both snake and boy fell to the ground ; and a broken 
thigh, and long confinement, cured the adventurer completely of his 
ambition for robbing Woodpeckers' nests. 
