on the ground, running their bills into the grass in quest of ants and their eggs, which are favorite food with them. They are handsome birds, differing in some respects from the other woodpeckers, and peculiar to North America, although two kindred varieties of golden-winged woodpeckers are found about the Cape, of Good Hope. But they have no bird in Europe at all like ours.
Besides the clape, we frequently see the downy woodpecker, and the hairy woodpecker, in the village; the first is the smallest of its tribe in America, and the second, which is a little larger, differs from it chiefly in the red band on its head. Both these birds make holes innumerable in the trunks of many trees, not only for insects, but for the sake of the sap also, which they drink; they are called sap-suckers by the country people, on that account. Frequently one sees a tree completely riddled, by a succession of these holes, which go round the trunk in regular rings, many of the circles lying close together; Mr. Wilson says that they are often so near together, that one may cover eight or ten of these holes with a silver dollar. Both these smaller woodpeckers are often seen on the rails of fences hunting for insects; and both remain here through the winter.
The handsome red-head, one of the migratory woodpeckers, is much more rare in our neighborhood than it used to be, but it is still found here, and we have seen them in the village. They are naturally sociable birds. A hundred miles to the westward, they are very numerous, even at the present day.
The large pileated woodpecker, or log-cock, a resident in Pennsylvania through the winter, is said to have been occasion-
