414 THE IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER. 



while the others stared with still greater astonishment. After diverting myself for a minute 

 or two at their expense, I drew my Woodpecker from under the cover, and a general laugh 

 took place. I took him upstairs, and locked him up in my room, while I went to see my 

 horse taken care of. 



" In less than an hour I returned, and on opening the door, he set up the same distressing 

 shout, which now appeared to proceed from grief that he had been discovered in his efforts at 

 escape. He had mounted along the side of the window, nearly as high as the ceiling, a little 

 below which he had begun to break through. The bed was covered with large pieces of plaster ; 

 the lath was exposed for at least fifteen inches square, and a hole large enough to admit the fist, 

 open to the weather boards ; so that in less than another hour he would certainly have 

 succeeded in making his way through. I now tied a string round his leg, and fastening it to the 

 table, again left Mm. I wished to preserve his life, and had gone off in search of suitable food 

 for him. As I reascended the stairs, I heard him again hard at work, and on entering had the 

 mortification to perceive that he had almost entirely ruined the mahogany table to which 

 he was fastened, and on which he had wreaked his whole vengeance. While engaged in taking 

 a drawing, he cut me severely in several places, and on the whole displayed such a noble and 

 unconquerable spirit, that I was frequently tempted to restore him to his native woods. 

 He lived with me nearly three days, but refused all sustenance, and I witnessed his death 

 with regret." 



The general color of this bird is black, glossed with green. The fore part of the head is 

 black, and the remainder is covered with a beautiful scarlet crest, each feather being spotted 

 towards the bottom with white, and taking a grayish ashen hue at the base. Of course these 

 colors can only be seen when the crest is erected. From below the eye a white streak runs 

 down the neck, and along the back, nearly to the insertion of the tail, and the secondaries, 

 together with their coverts and the tips of some of the primaries, are also white, so that when 

 the bird shuts its wings, its back appears wholly white. The tapering tail is black above, 

 yellowish-white below, and each feather is singularly concave. The wings are also lined with 

 yellowish-white. The bill is white as ivory, strong, fluted along its length, and nearly an 

 inch broad at the base. The female is plumaged like the male, with the exception of the 

 head, which is wholly black, without the beautiful scarlet crest. The total length of the 

 Ivory-billed Woodpecker is about twenty inches. 



Wilson says : "Nature seems to have designed for the Ivory-bill a distinguished charac- 

 teristic in the superb carmine crest and bill of polished ivory with which she has ornamented 

 him. His eye is brilliant and daring ; and his whole frame so admirably adapted for his mode 

 of life and method of procuring subsistence, as to impress on the mind of the examiner the 

 most reverential ideas of the Creator. His manners also have a dignity in them superior to 

 the common herd of Woodpeckers. Trees, shrubbery, fences, old bags, are alike interesting 

 to these in their humble, indefatigable search for prey ; but the royal hunter now before us 

 scorns the humility of such situations, and seeks the most towering trees of the forest, seem- 

 ing particularly attached to those prodigious cypress swamps whose crowded giant sons 

 stretch their bare and blasted arms midway to the skies. In these almost inaccessible recesses, 

 amid ruinous piles of impending timber, his trumpet-like notes and loud strokes resound 

 through the solitary savage wilds, of which he seems the sole lord and inhabitant. Wherever 

 he frequents he leaves numerous monuments of his industry behind him. We there see 

 enormous pine-trees with cart-loads of bark lying around their roots, and chips of the trunk 

 itself, in such quantities as to suggest the idea that half a dozen axe-men had been at work 

 there the whole morning. The body of the tree is also disfigured with so numerous and such 

 large excavations that one can hardly conceive it possible for the whole to be the work of one 

 Woodpecker. With such strength, and an apparatus so powerful, what havoc might he not 

 commit if numerous, on our most useful forest trees. And yet, with all these appearances, 

 and much vulgar prejudice against him, it may fairly be questioned whether he is at all 

 injurioiis ; or, at least, whether his exertions do not contribute most powerfully to the pro- 

 tection of our timber. Examine closely the tree where he has been at work, and you will 

 soon perceive that it is neither from motives of mischief nor amusement that he slices off the 



