SOUTHEKN PILEATED WOODPECKER 165 



they are distinctly smaller. In otlier words, I have restricted the name 

 pileatus to an intermediate form, characterized by the small size of 

 P. p. -floTidanus combined with an appreciably lighter (more slaty or 

 sooty) coloration, often approaching closely the lightness of hue of 

 P. f. ahieticola!''' 



Arthur T. Wayne (1910) says that in South Carolina "this fine 

 species is abundant wherever the forest is of a primeval nature, but 

 where the heavy growth has been cut away it is seldom met with." 

 Wright and Harper (1913), writing of its haunts in southern Georgia, 

 say : "With the exception of the red-bellied woodpecker, this is the most 

 abundant member of its family in the Okefinokee. In fact, we saw as 

 many as four Pileated Woodpeckers in a single tree. In every part 

 of the swamp — especially the cypress bays, but also the hammocks 

 and the piny woods on the islands, and even the 'heads' on the prairies — 

 these magnificent birds are at home." 



George Finlay Simmons (1925) says that in the Austin region of 

 Texas this woodpecker lives in the "wilder country only; cypress 

 swamps, and the most heavily timbered bottomlands, generally in 

 very thinly settled sections ; post oak woods on gravelly river terraces ; 

 edges of woodland meadows ; along margins of both large and small 

 streams; Austroriparian forests; in or near edges of timber, ventur- 

 ing out onto fields to feed." 



Charles R. Stockard (1904) says of his experience with this species 

 in Mississippi : 



During three seasons seventeen nests were watched in Adams County. In 

 the vicinity where observations were made every small woods had its pair of 

 these large woodpeckers. The individuals of this species seemed to occupy 

 very small feeding areas. Of the seven nests that were found in 1902 five 

 pairs of the birds were located in their respective woods during the previous 

 December and January. Whenever a pair was once seen feeding in a wood 

 during the winter the same pair could always be found very close to that place. 

 At the beginning of the nesting season they would invariably make their bur- 

 row in some dead but sound tree near the edge of the brake. From continued 

 observation it appeared certain that whenever a pair were found in a small 

 wood during the winter they were sure to nest there the following 

 spring. * * * 



In four instances, all of which had lost their eggs the year before, the birds 

 built their new burrows in their several woods within a distance of about one 

 quarter of a mile from the previous nest site. These four are the only cases 

 which were watched with special care. 



Nesting. — The only nests of this race that I have seen were shown 

 to me by A. T. Wayne, on May 19, 1915, near Mount Pleasant, S. C. 

 They were in tall, dead pine trees {P'lnus taeda) in a heavily forested 

 region of open, mixed woods. One was 43 feet from the ground ; he 

 had taken three fresh eggs from this nest on April 24, 1915. The 

 other I estimated as over 60 feet up, but he said it was 80 feet from 

 the ground ; it probably held young at that time, as both birds were 



