GOLD- WINGED WOODPECKER. 
43 
Both these little birds, from the great quantity of destructive 
insects and larvae they destroy, both under the bark and among 
the tender buds of our fruit and forest trees, are entitled to, 
and truly deserving of, our esteem and protection. 
GOLD-WINGED WOODPECKER — PICUS AURATUS. 
Plate III. Fig. 1. 
Le pic aux ailes dorees, De Huff on , vii. 39. PI. enl. 693 Picus auratus, Linn. Syst. 
174. — Cuculus alis de auratis, Klein , p. 30 Catesby, i. 18. — Latham, ii. 597. 
— Hartram, p. 289 Peale's Museum, No. 1938. 
COLAPTES A URATUS. — Swainson. * 
Picus auratus, Penn. Arct. Zool. ii. p. 270. — Wagler. No. 84. — Honap. Synop. 
p. 44 Golden-winged Woodpecker, Aud. i. p. 191. — Colaptes auratus, North. 
Zool. ii. 314. 
This elegant bird is well known to our farmers and junior 
sportsmen, who take every opportunity of destroying him ; 
the former, for the supposed trespasses he commits on their 
crested wrens, and perhaps a solitary creeper, proceed in the manner here 
mentioned, and regularly follow each other, as if in a laid out path. An 
alarm may cause a temporary digression of some of the troop ; but these are 
soon perceived making up their way to the main body. The whole may be 
found out, and traced by their various and constantly reiterated cries Ed. 
* This beautiful species is typical of one form among the Piciance, 
and has been designated under the above title by Mr Swainson. The form 
appears to range in North and South America, the West Indian Islands, and 
in Africa ; our present species is confined to North America alone. They 
are at once distinguished from the true woodpeckers and the other groups, by 
the curved and compressed bill, the broad and strong shafts of the quills, which 
are also generally brightly coloured, and appear very conspicuous during flight 
when the wings are expanded. In the typical species they are of a bright 
golden yellow, whence the common name ; and in one closely allied, the C. 
Mexicanus, Sw., of a bright reddish orange ; in a third, C. JBrasiliensis, they are 
of a pale straw yellow. The upper parts of the plumage are, in general, 
barred, and the feathers on the hindhead are of a uniform length, never crested. 
A difference in form will always produce a difference in habit ; and we accord- 
ingly find that these birds more frequently perch on the branches, and feed a great 
deal upon the ground ; they seem also to possess more of the activity of the 
nuthatch and titmice than the regular climb of the typical woodpeckers. The 
