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GOLD-WINGED WOODPECKER. 
manners and habits of the Woodpeckers, is notorious to every 
American naturalist ; while neither in the form of their body, 
nor any other part, except in the bill being somewhat bent, 
and the toes placed two before and two behind, have they the 
smallest resemblance whatever to the Cuckoo. 
It may not be improper, however, to observe, that there is 
another species of Woodpecker, called also Gold- winged,* 
which inhabits the country near the Cape of Good Hope, and 
resembles the present, it is said, almost exactly in the colour 
and form of its bill, and in the tint and markings of its plumage, 
with this difference, that the mustaches are red, instead of 
black, and the lower side of the wings, as well as their shafts, 
are also red, where the other is golden yellow. It is also 
considerably less. With respect to the habits of this new 
species, we have no particular account; but there is little 
doubt that they will be found to correspond with the one we 
are now describing. 
The abject and degraded character which the Count de 
Buffon, with equal eloquence and absurdity, has drawn of the 
whole tribe of Woodpeckers, belongs not to the elegant and 
sprightly bird now before us. How far it is applicable to any 
of them will be examined hereafter. He is not “ constrained 
to drag out an insipid existence in boring the bark and hard 
fibres of trees to extract his prey,” for he frequently finds in 
the loose mouldering ruins of an old stump (the capital of a 
nation of pismires) more than is sufficient for the wants of a 
whole week. He cannot be said to “ lead a mean and gloomy 
life, without an intermission of labour,” who usually feasts by 
the first peep of dawn, and spends the early and sweetest 
hours of morning on the highest peaks of the tallest trees, 
calling on his mate or companions ; or pursuing and gamboling 
with them round the larger limbs and body of the tree for 
hours together ; for such are really his habits. Can it be 
said, that (e necessity never grants an interval of sound repose ” 
Picus cafer, Turton’s Linn. 
