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RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER. 
has often reminded me of the barking of a little lapdog. It 
is a most expert climber, possessing extraordinary strength in 
the muscles of its feet and claws, and moves about the body 
and horizontal limbs of the trees, with equal facility in all 
directions. It rattles, like the rest of the tribe, on the dead 
limbs, and with such violence, as to be heard, in still 
weather, more than half a mile off, and listens to hear the 
insects it has alarmed. In the lower side of some lofty branch 
that makes a considerable angle with the horizon, the male 
and female, in conjunction, dig out a circular cavity for their 
nest, sometimes out of the solid wood, but more generally into 
a hollow limb, twelve or fifteen inches above where it becomes 
solid. This is usually performed early in April. The female 
lays five eggs of a pure white, or almost semitransparent ; and 
the young generally make their appearance towards the latter 
end of May, or beginning of June, climbing up to the higher 
parts of the tree, being as yet unable to fly. In this situation 
they are fed for several days, and often become the prey of the 
Hawks. From seeing the old ones continuing their caresses 
after this period, I believe that they often, and perhaps 
always, produce two broods in a season. During the greatest 
part of the summer, the young have the ridge of the neck and 
head of a dull brownish ash ; and a male of the third year has 
received his complete colours. 
The Red-bellied Woodpecker is ten inches in length, and 
seventeen in extent ; the bill is nearly an inch and a half in 
length, wedged at the point, but not quite so much grooved as 
some others, strong, and of a bluish black colour ; the nostrils 
are placed in one of these grooves, and covered with curving 
tufts of light brown hairs, ending in black points ; the feathers 
on the front stand more erect than usual, and are of a dull 
yellowish red ; from thence, along the whole upper part of the 
head and neck, down the back, and spreading round to the 
shoulders, is of the most brilliant golden glossy red; the 
whole cheeks, line over the eye, and under side of the neck, 
are a pale buff* colour, which, on the breast and belly, deepens 
into a yellowish ash, stained on the belly with a blood red ; 
