PIOUS CAROLINUS. 
156 
sometimes touched with yellowish or cream colo»J^J 
the legs and feet are of a hluish green, and the lO® 
the eye red. The tongue, or os hyiiides, passes up _ 
the hind head, and is attached, by a very elastic 
tile membrane, to the base of the right nostril ! *■ j 
extremity of the tongue is long, hornj-, very 
and thickly edged with barbs, the otlier part of * j 
tongue is worm-shaped. In several specimens, I 
the stomach nearly filled with pieces of a specie®. 
fungus, that grows on decayed wood, and, in all, " j,, 
great numhers of insects, seeds, gravel, &c. The 
differs from the male in having’ the crown, for an 
of a fine ash, and the black not so intense ; the 
reddish as in the mule, and the whole hind head, o® p 
to the hack, likewise of tlie same rich red as his. 
the bird, from which this latter description was f® 
I found a large cluster of minute eggs, to the niiD* p 
of fifty, or upwards, in the beginning of the JO®** 
of March. . ^jl 
This species inhabits a large extent of country', >" ,) 
of which it seems to he resident, or nearly so. 1 1®'‘ j|) 
them abundant in Upper Canada, and in the nort® 
parts of the state of New York, in the month of 
vember ; they also inhabit the whole Atlantic stat®?j^ 
far as Georgia, and the southern extremity of F*®*^’*! 
as well as the interior parts of the United States, ^ 
west as Chilicothe, in the state of Ohio, and, accor® ly 
to Buffon, Louisiana. They are said to he the ® j, 
woodpeckers found in Jamaica ; though I <l®®' j (if 
whether this be correct ; and to be extremely 
the ca))sicuin, or Indian pepjier.’* They are ccrWi^V 
much hardier birds, and capable of subsisting on ®®^^f 
and more various fare, and of sustaining a .fS. 
degree of cold, than several other of our woodpeek^. 
They are active and vigorous ; and, being almost 
tinually in search of insects that injure our forest 
do not seem to deserve the injurious epithets y 
almost all writers have given them. It is true, 
* Sloane. 
