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PICUS AURATUS. 
where they had dug 1 first five inches straight forward, 
and then downward more than twice that distance, 
through a solid black oak. They carry in no materials 
for their nest, ,the soft chips and dust of the wood 
serving all their purpose. The female lays six white 
eggs, almost transparent, very thick at the greater end, 
and tapering suddenly to the other. The young early 
leave the nest, and, climbing to the higher branches, 
are there fed by their parents. 
The food of this bird varies with the season. When 
the common cherries, bird cherries, and berries of the 
sour gum, successively ripen, he regales plentifully on 
them, particularly on the latter ; but the chief food of 
this species, or that which is most usually found in his 
stomach, is wood lice, and the young and larvae of 
ants, of which he is so immoderately fond, that I have 
frequently found his stomach distended with a mass of 
these, and these only, as large nearly as a plumb : for 
the procuring of these insects, nature has remarkably 
fitted him. The bills of woodpeckers, in general, are 
straight, grooved or channelled, wedge-shaped, and 
compressed to a thin edge at the end, that they may 
the easier penetrate the hardest wood ; that of the 
gold-winged woodpecker is long, slightly bent, ridged 
only on the top, and tapering almost to a point, yet 
still retaining a little of the wedge form there. Both, 
however, are admirably adapted for the peculiar manner 
each has of procuring its food. The former, like a 
powerful wedge, to penetrate the dead and decaying 
branches, after worms and insects ; the latter, like a 
long and sharp pickaxe, to dig up the hillocks of 
pismires, that inhabit old stumps in prodigious multi- 
tudes. These beneficial services would entitle him to 
some regard from the husbandman, were he not accused, 
and perhaps not without just cause, of being too partial 
to the Indian corn, when in that state which is usually 
called roasting-ears. His visits are indeed rather fre- 
quent about this time ; and the farmer, suspecting what 
is going on, steals through among the rows with his 
