YELLOW-BELLIED WOODPECKER. 
157 
frequently perforate the timber in pursuit of these 
vermin, but this is almost always in dead and decaying 
parts of the tree, which are the nests and nurseries of 
millions of destructive insects. Considering matters in 
this light, I do not think their services overpaid by all 
the ears of Indian corn they consume ; and would 
protect them, within my own premises, as being more 
useful than injurious. 
43 . PICUS V API US, LINNJEUS. YELLOW-BELLIED WOODPECKEB. 
WILSON, PL. IX. FIG. II. ADULT MALE. EDINBURGH COLLEGE 
MUSEUM. 
This beautiful species is one of our resident birds. 
It visits our orchards in the month of October in great 
numbers, is occasionally seen during the whole winter 
and spring, but seems to seek the depths of the forest, 
to rear its young in ; for during summer it is rarely 
seen among our settlements ; and even in the inter- 
mediate woods I have seldom met with it in that season. 
According to Brisson it inhabits the continent from 
Cayenne to Virginia ; and I may add, as far as to 
Hudson’s Bay, where, according to Hutchins, they are 
called Mehsewe Paupastaow ,* they are also common 
in the states of Kentucky and Ohio, and have been 
seen in the neighbourhood of St Louis. They are 
reckoned by Georgi among the birds that frequent the 
Lake Baikal, in Asia,')' but their existence there has not 
been satisfactorily ascertained. 
The habits of this species are similar to those of the 
hairy and downy woodpeckers, with which it generally 
associates. The only nest of this bird which I have 
met w ith was in the body of an old pear-tree, about ten 
or eleyen feet from the ground. The hole w as almost 
exactly circular, small for the size of the bird, so that 
it crept in and out with difficulty; but ^suddenly 
yyidened, descending by a small angle and then rounding 
* Latham. 
f Ibid. 
