RED-HEADED WOODPECKER. 
151 
extent, seventeen inches. The figure on the plate was drawn 
and coloured from a very elegant living specimen. 
Notwithstanding the care which this bird, in common with 
the rest of its genus, takes to place its young beyond the 
reach of enemies, within the hollows of trees, yet there is one 
deadly foe, against whose depredations neither the height of 
the tree, nor the depth of the cavity, is the least security. 
This is the black snake ( Coluber constrictor ,) who frequently 
glides up the trunk of the tree, and, like a skulking savage, 
enters the Woodpecker’s peaceful apartment, devours the eggs 
or helpless young, in spite of the cries and flutterings of the 
parents ; and, if the place be large enough, coils himself up in 
the spot they occupied, where he will sometimes remain for 
several days. The eager schoolboy, after hazarding his neck 
to reach the Woodpecker’s hole, at the triumphant moment 
when he thinks the nestlings his own, and strips his arm, 
lanching it down into the cavity, and grasping what he con- 
ceives to be the callow young, starts with horror at the sight 
of a hideous snake, and almost drops from his giddy pinnacle, 
retreating down the tree with terror and precipitation. Several 
adventures of this kind have come to my knowledge ; and one 
of them was attended with serious consequences, where 
both snake and boy fell to the ground ; and a broken thigh, 
and long confinement, cured the adventurer completely of his 
ambition for robbing Woodpecker’s nests. 
i 
