146 
PICUS AURATUS. 
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 haye no particular account ,* but 
there is little doubt that they will be found to corres- 
pond 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 com- 
panions, 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 
“ necessity never grants an interval of sound repose” 
to that bird, who, while other tribes are exposed to all 
the peltings of the midnight storm, lodges dry and 
secure in a snug chamber of his own constructing ? or 
that “ the narrow circumference of a tree circumscribes 
his dull round of life,” who, as seasons and inclination 
inspire, roams from the frigid to the torrid zone, 
feasting on the abundance of various regions ? Or is it 
a proof that “ his appetite is never softened by delicacy 
of taste,” because he so often varies his bill of fare, 
occasionally preferring to animal food the rich milkiness 
