IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER 9 



tunnels of large, wood-boring beetle larvae (Cerambycidae) of which there were 

 a great many in the tree ; the only other available woodpecker food was termites 

 of which there were comparatively few. 



Certainly the ivorybills did not do enough digging while we were watching 

 them to uncover any additional borers, so they may have been picking up such 

 termites as appeared in the gash. The birds, while we watched them in 

 Louisiana, divided their time between dead branches of live trees and com- 

 pletely dead trees, but more time was spent knocking of£ the bark for whatever 

 could be found immediately beneath it than was spent digging deeply for borers. 

 The forest was made up primarily of oak, gum and hackberry, and the wood- 

 peckers showed no preference for species so far as we could determine. In 

 Florida, while the nest was located in a cypress swamp in a live cypress tree, 

 the birds apparently did most of their feeding in the dead pines at the edge of the 

 swamp, scaling off the bark of those small and medium-sized pines that had 

 been killed by fire, or actually getting down on the ground like Flickers, as 

 already described. 



The ivorybills are, therefore, apparently somewhat adaptable in 

 their food and feeding habits, but forests of mature trees with their 

 dying branches seem to give them the best habitat for securing their 

 food. The fruits of these trees may likewise add considerably to their 

 attractiveness. The only definite stomach analyses published are of 

 two birds examined by the United States Biological Survey, and re- 

 ported upon by Beal (1911) : "One stomach contained 32 and the other 

 20 of the wood-boring cerambycid larvae, which live by boring into 

 trees. These constituted 37.5 per cent of the whole food. The re- 

 mainder of the animal food consisted of engraver beetles {Scolytidae) 

 found in one stomach. Of these, three species were identified — 

 Tomiciis avulsus^ T. cdlligraphus^ and T. grandicollis. The total 

 animal food amounted to 38.5 per cent. The vegetable food consisted 

 of fruit of Magnolia foetida in one stomach, and of pecan nuts in the 

 other. The average for the two was 61.5 percent." 



The ivory-billed woodpecker is represented in the Biological Sur- 

 vey's collection by the stomachs of three birds. Two of these were 

 males collected on November 26, 1904, at Tarkington, Tex., by Vernon 

 Bailey, and the third was shot at Bowling Green, West Carroll Parish, 

 La., on August 19, 1903, by E. L. Moseley. 



The first two stomachs were well filled, and though only the content 

 of the third was received it was apparently well filled also. This 

 last stomach alone contained a trace of gravel. Forty-six percent 

 of the food was animal in origin, long-horned beetles (Cerambycidae, 

 including Parandra 'poJita and Stenodontus dasystomus) comprising 

 45.33 percent, while the remaining 0.67 percent consisted of 3 different 

 species of engraver beetles {Totnicus spp.). Southern magnolia seeds 

 {Magnolia grandi^ord) formed 14 percent of the vegetable food, hick- 

 ory {Hicoria sp.) and pecan {Hicoria pecan) nuts formed 27 percent, 

 90801— yo 2 



