PILEATED WOODPECKER. 167 



and along the back, -svliere thej are about an inch apart, nearly to the 

 rump ; the first five primaries are wholly black, on the next five the 

 white spreads from the tip higher and higher to the secondaries, which 

 are wholly white from their coverts downwards: these markings, when 

 the wings are shut, make the bird appear as if his back were white, 

 hence he has been called, by some of our naturalists, the large White- 

 backed Woodpecker ; the neck is long ; the beak an inch broad at the 

 base, of the color and consistence of ivory, prodigiously strong, and ele- 

 gantly fluted ; the tail is black, tapering from the two exterior feathers, 

 Avhich are three inches shorter than the middle ones, and each feather 

 has the singularity of being greatly concave below ; the wing is lined 

 with yellowish white ; the legs are about an inch and a quarter long, the 

 exterior toe about the same length, the claws exactly semicircular and 

 remarkably powerful, the whole of a light blue or lead color. The 

 female is about half an inch shorter, the bill rather less, and the whole 

 plumage of the head black, glossed with green ; in the other parts of 

 the plumage she exactly resembles the male. In the stomachs of three 

 which I opened, I found large quantities of a species of worm called 

 borers, two or three inches long, of a dirty cream-color, with a black 

 head ; the stomach was an oblong pouch, not muscular like the gizzards 

 of some others. The tongue was worm-shaped, and for half an inch at 

 the tip as hard as horn, flat, pointed, of the same white color as the bill, 

 and thickly barbed on each side. 



Species II. PIC US PILEATUS. 



PILEATED WOODPECKER. 



[Plate XXIX. Fig. 2.j 



Picus pileatus, Lath. Tntl. Orn. i., p. 223, 4. — Linn. Syst. i., p. 173, 3. — Gmel. 

 Syst. I., p. 425. — Picus nigerVirginianus cristatus, Briss. iv., p. 29, 10. — Picnoir 

 a hvppe rouge, Buff, til, p. 48. — Pic noir huppe de la Louisiane, PL Enl. 718. 

 — Larger crested Woodpeckei; Catesb. Car. i., 17. — Pileated Woodpecker, Arct. 

 Zool. II., No. 157. — L.VTII. Syn. ii., p. 554, 3. — Id. Sup. p. 105. — Bartram, p. 289. 



This American species is the second in size among his tribe, and may 

 be styled the Great Northern Chief of the Woodpeckers, though, in 

 fact, his range extends over the whole of the United States, from the 

 interior of Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. lie is very numerous in the 

 Genesee country, and in all the tracts of higli-timbered forests, particu- 

 larly in the neighborhood of our large rivers, where he is noted for 

 making a loud and almost incessant cackling before wet weather ; flyi'ig 



