‘GOLDEN-WINGED WOODPECKER. 401 
Abundant summer resident from April to October. A few remain in 
Middie Ohio throughout the year. 
This in the most abundant and best known of all our Woodpeckers. 
It frequents forests and groves, orchards and solitary trees in fields. 
With the ordinary food habits of Woodpeckers, it combines a taste for 
grasshoppers and beetles, and is moreover an expert flycatcher, often 
capturing insects on the wing after the manner of the true Flycatchers. 
It is more often seen seeking food on the ground than any other ot tha 
family, except the Golden-winged Woodpecker. Nor is its food entirely 
insectivous, for, as farmers and gardeners well know, it invades gar- 
dens and orchards, eating, carrying off and mutilating the finest apples, 
pears, cherries, and other fruits. It also visits the corn-fields and feeds 
upon the tender corn and the worms which attack it. 
In this vicinity only a few remain through the winter, and these retire 
to the deepest woods or wooded ravines, where they find a limited pro- 
tection from the severity of the weather. About the middle of April 
they return in great numbers from the south, and leave again in Septem- 
ber and October. 
They are very noisy and quarrelsome, not only among each other, but 
frequently with other birds. Siould a bird of another species be in- 
clined to resent their impertinent assault, they retire to a dead limb or 
fence stake, and treat their irritated enemy to an aggravating game of 
bo-peep. 
The nest of the Red-headed Woodpecker varies greatly in position, 
being located from ten to a hundred feet above the ground. It is gen- 
erally in a dead limb or trunk, but not unfrequently excavated in living 
wood. The eggs are usually five, pure white, and measure from 1.10 to 
1.15 inches in length by .80 to .90 in breadth. 
GENUS COLAPTES. Swainson. 
Bill curved, pointed, without ridge on upper mandible. Nostrilsoval. Posterior out 
toe shorter than the anterior. 
CoLAPTES AURATUS (L.) Sw. 
Golden-winged Woodpecker; HM licker. 
Picus auratus, KIRTLAND, Ohio Geelog. Sarv., 1638, 162. 
Colaptes auratus, READ, Proc Phila. Acad. Nat. Sci., vi, 1853, 395.—KIrRKPATRICK, Ohio 
Farmer, ix, 1860, 347.—WHEATON, Ohio Agric. Rep. for 1c60, 362, 373; Reprint, 1861, 
4,15; Food of Birds, etc., Ohio Agric. Rep. for 1>74, 569; Reprint, 1875, 9—LANGDon, 
Cat. Birds of Cin., 1877, 11; Journ. Cin. Soc. Nat. Hist., i, 1879, 179; Reprint, i3 
Summer Birds, ib., iii, 1880, 225; Field Notes, ib., ii, 1880, 125. 
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