The RED-HEADED BLACK WOODPECKER (_Melanerpes erythrocephalus_) is of a bright red colour on the head and neck. The mantle, wings, and tail are of a jetty blackness; the hinder quills, rump, and under side pure white. The eye is brown, the beak and feet blueish black. The female is smaller and less brightly coloured than her mate. In the young the head, throat, mantle, and breast are of a greyish brown, marked with blackish brown, crescent-shaped spots. The exterior quills are blackish brown, the inner ones reddish white, striped with blackish brown towards the tip; the tail-feathers are deep brownish black. This species is nine inches long and seventeen broad; the wing measures four inches and five-sixths, and the tail two inches and three-quarters. "The Red-heads," says Audubon, "may be considered as residents of the Northern States, inasmuch as many of them remain in the southern districts during the whole winter, and breed there in summer; the greater number, however, pass to countries farther south. Their migration takes place at night, is commenced in the middle of September, and is continued for a month or six weeks. They then fly high above the trees, far apart, like a disbanded army, propelling themselves by reiterated flaps of the wing at the end of each successive curve which they describe in their flight. The note which they emit at this time is different from the usual one--sharp and easily heard from the ground, although the birds may be out of sight; this note is continued as if it were necessary for keeping the straggling party in good humour. At dawn of day the whole alight on the tops of the dead trees about the plantations, and remain in search of food until the approach of sunset, when they again, one after the other, mount the air and continue their journey.