This depiction of a red-bellied and a hairy woodpecker is taken from one of the most important early works on the natural history of North America, The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands, by Mark Catesby. A copy of the two-volume work, published in 1731 and 1743, is in the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation collection. It contains 220 copperplated engravings of plants, birds, fish, insects, snakes, and other forms of natural life with accompanying text.

Catesby said that the red-bellied woodpecker and the hairy woodpecker each weighs about two ounces.