RED-COCKADED WOODPECKER 73 



custom of annually burning the woods under the impression that in 

 that way next year's pasturage will be improved. 



As a result, the younger trees and seedlings are killed off. Only the 

 hardier and more resistant survivors remain, so that there is little or 

 no underbrush and the general appearance of these woods is more that 

 of an open glade or park than of typical pine forest. William Brew- 

 ster (1882) comments on the character of these forests as follows: 

 "The pine lands of the South have an open park-like character that 

 is a continual surprise to one accustomed only to New England for- 

 ests. The trees rarely stand in close proximity to one another, and 

 they are often so widely scattered that the general effect is that of 

 an opening rather than a forest." These pines are chiefly Pinus 

 palustris Miller, Pinus ellioti Engelmann, and Pinus taeda Linnaeus. 



From many sections of the South where it was formerly coimnon, 

 the red-cockaded woodpecker has disappeared by reason of the ruth- 

 less destruction of pine forests by the lumbermen. Wlien the large 

 timber is cut out, the birds leave the locality and apparently do not 

 return. However, there is still a considerable amount of pine forest 

 suitable for its nesting that is held in private hands and not about 

 to be destroyed. In fact, such timber holdings are largely on the in- 

 crease, particularly in the "low country" of South Carolina and 

 Georgia and in certain zones around Thomasville, Ga., and Aiken, 

 S. C, where vast tracts are being conserved by private ownership 

 as game refuges and shooting preserves. 



There is also a very considerable amount of intelligent reforesta- 

 tion being carried out, which in time will also furnish adequate and 

 suitable breeding grounds. This species is so highly specialized at 

 least in the South Atlantic States in its habits and its choice of en- 

 vironment that the destruction of the pine forests would probably 

 put its existence in serious jeopardy. 



Nesting. — ^Audubon (1842) stated that "the nest is not unfrequently 

 bored in a decayed stump about thirty feet high." G. W. Morse 

 (1927) found the bird nesting in a willow tree in a pasture in Okla- 

 homa. M. G. Vaiden (MS.) reports fi'om Collins, Miss., the taking 

 of a nest from a pine tree, the top of which was dead and the nest 

 hole about 8 feet from the top. Arthur T. Wayne (1906), who has 

 probably had more intimate experience with this bird than any other 

 observer, states : 



I have seen perhaps a thousand holes in which this woodpecker had bred or 

 was Breeding, and every one was excavated in a living pine tree, ranging from 

 eigliteen to one hundred feet above the ground. This bird never lays its eggs 

 until the pine gum pours freely from beneath and around the hole, and in order 

 to accelerate the flow the birds puncture the bark to the "skin" of the tree 

 thereby causing the gum to exude freely. This species, unlike the Pileated Wood- 

 pecker, returns to the same hole year after year until it can no longer make 



00801—39 6 



