1 58 
PICUS CAROLINUS. 
sometimes touched with yellowish or cream colour; 
the leg’s and feet are of a bluish green, and the iris of 
the eye red. The tongue, or os hydides, passes up over 
the hind head, and is attached, by a very elastic retrac- 
tile membrane, to the base of the right nostril ; the 
extremity of the tongue is long, horny, very pointed, 
and thickly edged with barbs, the other part of the 
tongue is worm-shaped. In several specimens, I found 
the stomach nearly filled with pieces of a species of 
fungus, that grows on decayed wood, and, in ail, with 
great numbers of insects, seeds, gravel, &c. The female 
differs from the male in having the crown, for an inch, 
of a fine ash, and the black not so intense ; the front is 
reddish as in the male, and the whole hind head, down 
to the back, likewise of the same rich red as his. In 
the bird, from which this latter description was taken, 
I found a large cluster of minute eggs, to the number 
of fifty, or upwards, in the beginning of the month 
of March. 
This species inhabits a large extent of country, in all 
of which it seems to be resident, or nearly so. I found 
them abundant in Upper Canada, and in the northern 
parts of the state of New York, in the month of No- 
vember ; they also inhabit the whole Atlantic states as 
far as Georgia, and the southern extremity of Florida, 
as well as the interior parts of the United States, as far 
west as Chilicothe, in the state of Ohio, and, according 
to Buffon, Louisiana. They are said to be the only 
woodpeckers found in Jamaica ; though I question 
whether this be correct ; and to be extremely fond of 
the capsicum, or Indian pepper.* They are certainly 
much hardier birds, and capable of subsisting on coarser 
and more various fare, and of sustaining a greater 
degree of cold, than several other of our woodpeckers. 
They are active and vigorous ; and, being almost con- 
tinually in search of insects that injure our forest trees, 
do not seem to deserve the injurious epithets that 
almost all writers have given them. It is true, they 
* Sloane. 
