pursue each other on wing in a very amicable manner, in long beautifully curved sweeps, during which the remarkable variety of their plumage becomes conspicuous, and is highly pleasing to the eye. When passing from one tree to another, their flight resembles the motion of a great swing, and is performed by a slight opening of the wings, descending at first, and rising towards the spot on which they are going to alight, with ease and in the most graceful manner.

The Black Snake (Colubra constrictor) is said by Wilson to destroy many of the young of this species. It glides up the trunk of the tree, and, like a skulking savage, enters the Woodpecker's peaceable apartment, devours the eggs or helpless young, in spite of the cries or flutterings of the parents, and, if the place be large enough, coils himself up in the spot they occupied, where he will sometimes remain for several days.

The head and neck of this bird are bright crimson; back, wing-coverts, primaries, and tail-feathers black, with blue reflections; rump and secondaries white, the shafts of the latter black; breast and under parts white tinged with yellowish-brown; an irregular transverse band of black between the crimson of the neck and the white of the breast: length of the bird nine inches.

Of the species which are natives of America the Downy Woodpecker (Dendrocopus pubescens) is the smallest in size, and, from its habit of boring and digging into apple-trees, has been considered by Buffon and some other naturalists as the most destructive of its whole genus to the orchards. The American ornithologists, however, Wilson and Audubon, do

not accord with this condemnation of the little ham

merer.

The principal characteristics of this species, according to Wilson, are diligence, familiarity, perseverance, and a strength and energy in the head and muscles of the neck which are truly astonishing. Mounted on the infested branch of an apple-tree, where insects have lodged their corroding and destructive brood in crevices between the bark and wood, he labours sometime for half an hour incessantly at the same spot, before he has succeeded in dislodging and destroying them. At those times you may walk up pretty close to the tree, and even stand immediately below it, within five or six feet of the bird, without in the least embarrassing him. The strokes of his bill are distinctly heard several hundred yards off; and I have known him to be at work for two hours together on the same tree. He has a single note, or chick, which he frequently repeats; and when he flies off or alights on another tree, he utters a rather shrilly cry, composed of nearly the same kind of note quickly reiterated. In fall and winter he associates with the titmouse, creeper, etc., both in their wood and orchard excursions, and usually leads the van. Of all our

Woodpeckers, continues Wilson, none rid the appletrees of so many vermin as this, digging off the moss which the negligence of the proprietor had suffered to accumulate, and probing every crevice. In fact, the orchard is his favourite resort in all seasons; and his industry is unequalled, and almost incessant, which is more than can be said of any other species we have. In fall, he is particularly fond of boring the apple-trees

for insects, digging a circular hole through the bark, just sufficient to admit his bill, after that a second, third, etc., in pretty regular horizontal circles round the body of the tree; these parallel circles of holes are often not more than an inch and a half apart, and sometimes so close together, that I have covered eight or ten of them at once with a dollar. From nearly the surface of the gronnd up to the first fork, and sometimes far beyond it, the whole bark of many apple-trees is perforated in this manner, so as to appear as if made by successive discharges of buck-shot. This is in a great measure the work of the little Downy Woodpecker.

In length this species is six inches and three quarters, and its extent twelve inches. It has been generally supposed that this bird, and some others of its family, feed upon the sap of the trees that it punctures, and they have therefore obtained the appellation of Sap-suckers;" but this opinion appears to be

erroneous.

The three-toed species exhibit an exception to the general zygodactylie form of the Woodpecker's foot. This peculiar form may probably enable the bird to run along the stem and branches of trees with greater facility than those which have two toes behind. They are inhabitants of America, Asia, and Europe. It is the hallux, or true hind toe, that is wanting.