30 
EED-HEADED WOODPECKER. 
one say, that taking half a dozen, or half a hundred, apples from 
a tree, is equally ruinous with cutting it down? or, that the ser- 
vices of a useful animal should not be rewarded with a small 
portion of that which it has contributed to preserve? We are 
told, in the benevolent language of the Scriptures, not to muz- 
zle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn; and why 
should not the same generous liberality be extended to this use- 
ful 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 appearance in Pennsylvania about 
the first of May; and leave us about the middle of October. They 
inhabit from Canada to the gulf of Mexico, and are also found 
on the western coast of North America. About the middle 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 occasioned some European writers 
to mistake them for females; the white on the wing is also spot- 
ted 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 colours 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 narrow skin, bare of feathers; iris 
dark hazel ; total length nine inches and a half, extent seventeen 
