WOODPECKERS. 
30] 
on the ground, running tlieir bills into the grass in quest of ants 
and their eggs, which are favorite food with them. The}^ are 
handsome birds, diifering in some respects from the other wood- 
peckers, and pecuhar to North America, although two kindred 
varieties of golden-winged woodpeckers are found about the Cape, 
of Good Hope. But they have no bird in Europe at all like 
ours. 
Besides the clape, we frequently see the downy woodpecker, 
and the hairy woodpecker, in the village ; the first is the smallest 
of its tribe in America, and the second, which is a little larger, 
differs from it chiefly in the red band on its head. Both these 
birds make holes innumerable in the trunks of many trees, not 
only for insects, but for the sake of the sap also, which they 
drink ; they are called sap-suckers by the country people, on that 
account. Frequently one sees a tree completely riddled, by a 
succession of these holes, which go round the trunk in regular 
rings, many of the circles lying close together ; Mr. Wilson says 
that they are often so near together, that one may cover eight or 
ten of these holes with a silver dollar. Both these smaller wood- 
peckers are often seen on the rails of fences hunting for insects ; 
and both remain here through the winter. 
The handsome red-head, one of the migratory woodpeckers, is 
much more rare in our neighborhood than it used to be, but it is 
still found here, and we have seen them in the village. They are 
naturally sociable birds. A hundred miles to the westward, they 
are very numerous, even at the present day. 
The large pileated woodpecker, or log-cock, a resident in 
Pennsylvania through the winter, is said to have been occasion- 
