RED-HEADED WOODPECKER. 153 
they receive their perfect plumage, and the male and 
female then differ only in the latter being rather smaller, 
and its colours not quite so vivid ; both have the head 
and neck deep scarlet ; the bill light blue, black towards 
the extremity, and strong ; back, primaries, wing- 
coverts, and tail, black, glossed with steel-blue ; rump, 
lower part of the back, secondaries, and whole under 
parts from the breast downward, white; legs and feet, 
bluish green ; claws, light blue ; round the eye, a dusky 
narrow skin, bare of feathers; iris, dark hazel; total 
length, nine inches and a half ; extent, seventeen inches, 
Notwithstanding the care which this bird, in com- 
mon 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 depre- 
dations 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 he large enough, coils 
himself up in the spot they occupied, where he will 
sometimes remain for several days. The eager school- 
boy, after hazarding bis 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 conceives 
to he 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 that was 
attended with serious consequences, where both snake 
and hoy fell to the ground; and a broken thigh, and 
long confinement, cured the adventurer completely of 
Ills ambition for robbing woodpecker’s nests. 
