50 
RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER. 
thers just touch, coincide, and form heart-shaped spots; a narrow 
sword-shaped line of white runs up the exterior side of the shafts 
of the same feathers; the next four feathers, on each side, are 
black, the outer edges of the exterior ones barred with black 
and white, which, on the lower side, seems to cross the whole 
vane as in the figure; the extremities of the whole tail, except 
the outer feather, are black, sometimes touched with yellowish 
or cream colour; the legs and feet are of a bluish green, and the 
iris of the eye red. The tongue, or os hyoides, passes up over 
the hind-head, and is attached by a very elastic retractile mem- 
brane, to the base of the right nostril; the extremity of the tongue 
is long, horny, very pointed, and thickly edged with barbs, the 
other part of the tongue is worm-shaped. In several specimens, 
I found the stomach nearly filled with pieces of a species of fun- 
gus, that grows on decayed wood, and in all with great numbers 
of insects, seeds, gravel, &c. &c. The female differs from the 
male, in having the crown, for an inch, of a fine ash, and the 
black not so intense; the front is reddish as in the male, and 
the whole hind-head, down to the back, likewise of the same 
rich red as his. In the bird, from which this latter description 
was taken, I found a large cluster of minute eggs, to the number 
of fifty or upwards, in the beginning of the month of March. 
This species inhabits a large extent of country, in all of which 
it seems to be resident, or nearly so. I found them abundant in 
Upper Canada, and in the northern parts of the state of New 
York, in the month of November; they also inhabit the whole 
Atlantic states as far as Georgia, and the southern extremity of 
Florida; as well as the interior parts of the United States, as far 
west as Chilicothe, in the state of Ohio, and, according to Buffbn, 
Louisiana. They are said to be the only Woodpeckers found 
in Jamaica; though I question whether this be correct; and to 
be extremely fond of the capsicum, or Indian pepper.* They 
are certainly much hardier birds, and capable of subsisting on 
coarser, and more various fare, and of sustaining a greater de- 
Sloane. 
