FAMILY V. 
SAOITTILINGUES, Illioek. 
GENUS Vl.—PlCVS, LiNNJiUS. 
38. ncus TEINCIPALIS, WOODPECK*®' 
WILSON, PL. XXIX. FIG. I. MALE. EDINBURGH COLLEGE 
MUSEUM. 
This majestic and formidable species, in strength i*’' ^ 
magnitude, stands at the head of the whole class 
woodpeckers hitherto discovered. He may be 
the king or chief of his tribe ; and nature seems to b»'. 
designed him a distinguished characteristic in the supC^t 
carmine crest and bill of polished ivory with 
she has ornamented him. Ilis eye is brilliant 
daring; and his whole frame so admirably adapted w 
his mode of life, and method of procuring subsistei'C^J 
as to impress on the mind of the examiner the O’®' 
reverential ideas of the Creator. His manners 
also a dignity in them superior to the common herd ^ 
woodpeckers. Trees, shrubbery, orchards, rails, 
posts, and old prostrate logs, are alike interestinff , 
those, in their humble and indefatigable search for 
but the royal hunter now before us, scorns the hunii** 
of such .situations, and seeks the most towering 
of the forest; seeming' particularly attached to 
prodigious cypress swamps, whose crowded giant s 
stretch their bare and blasted or moss-hung lu-ms 
way to the skies. In these almost inaccessible reces-^j_ 
amid ruinous piles of impending timber, his tnin>P 
,d 
