CONSPICUOUSLY BLACK AND WHITE 375 



While you have been examining the young, — which, 

 if you are a woman, must be lowered to you, — the 

 parents have ceased to protest and are watching you in 

 silence from behind a tree trunk a hundred feet or so 

 away. After you have replaced the nestlings and left 

 the immediate vicinity, the adult birds will wait an 

 hour or more before they come back to investigate the 

 damage, and then it is the mother who finally ventures 

 into the molested home to brood again, while the " Cock 

 of the Woods " watches, as before, from a neighboring 

 tree. 



For a week or two after the young have left tlie nest, 

 they follow their parents begging for food wdth ludicrous 

 eagerness ; at this time the provender brought them con- 

 sists of nuts, berries, ants, and the larvso of beetles. 

 These, especially the nuts, are often placed in a crevice 

 of the bark, and the youngster is compelled to pick 

 them out. After a few trials he learns to hammer right 

 merrily and is ready to forage for himself. Unlike otlier 

 woodpeckers, but like the flickers again, the Pileated is 

 often seen eating ants on the ground or on a log; hence 

 his name of ^' Log Cock." 



The call-notes of the Pileated Woodpecker are very 

 like those of the flicker, bnt louder and flatter in tone, 

 '' kac-kac-kac-kac " and " wucker-wucker-wucker " being 

 the most common. When the bird is much excited, the 

 note is a modification of both a lond and harsh " hiker- 

 hiker " rapidly repeated. As it excavates a new nest every 

 year, there are often fresh chips at the foot of the nest 

 tree to the amount of two or three (juarts. The cavity 



