XXXVIII 



PiLBATED Woodpecker; Cock of the Woods; Noethern 



PiLEATED Woodpecker 



405. Phoetomus pileatus albieticola (Bangs.) 



When I was a boy in Kentucky, these big Wood- 

 peckers were to be found along the creek bottoms where 

 there were large bodies of heavy timber. The birds were 

 extremely shy and required about as much skill in stalk- 

 ing to within gunshot range as a Wild Turkey. Their 

 departure was so silent that you did not discover their 

 flight until you heard them a half-mile away, seemingly 

 daring you to follow. 



The Pileated Woodpecker is a powerful bird, about 

 as long as a Crow — eighteen inches — with a bluish-black 

 general marking and a white stripe from the angle of 

 the mouth, beneath the eyes and down the side of the 

 body. The head is capped with a large crest of the 

 deepest scarlet ; the bill is black, this feature being one of 

 the principal distinguishing marks as compared to the 

 Ivory-billed bird, now almost extinct, found chiefly in 

 the Everglades of Florida, where I saw three in 1921. 



The United States pileated, black-billed bird also 

 is becoming very rare, yet a few are to be found along 

 the larger watercourses, bordered by primeval forests. 

 It has a loud and rasping voice that is monotonous in 

 its repetition during the mating season. 



In the same game preserve in Missouri in which I 

 pictured the Snowy Heron and the Prothonotary Warbler 

 in 1921, I saw and heard several Pileated Woodpeckers. 

 They are extremely shy and only two or three are to 

 be seen in one locality. They are so much afraid of man 

 that they will not remain when he invades their territory 

 but retreat before civilization into the remote fastnesses 

 of big tracts of heavy timber. 



The Pileated Woodpecker is the best wood-carver 

 of the Woodpecker family, and great piles of chips are 

 always to be found on the ground at the root of a nest 



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