366 Bird - Lore 



be of short duration. In some of the southern towns, where heavy forests are 

 adjacent, this species will sometimes come into the groves about dwellings. 



While a student at the University of North Carolina, I remember seeing 

 three on the University campus at one time. Three pairs of the birds con- 

 stantly inhabited the college woods, a tract of perhaps loo acres, which 

 adjoined the campus. Although the nests are often built a considerable dis- 

 tance from the ground, I have found them in Guilford County, N. C, at a 

 height not greater than 12 feet, but this was probably exceptional. 



Mr. Arthur T. Wayne, of Mt. Pleasant, S. C, who has spent much time 

 studying the habits of this bird, in his 'Birds of South Carolina,' says: 



"This species uses a certain hole, which it excavates in a living black gum 

 or a living sweet gum tree, in which to sleep, and it is so attached to it that I 

 have known one of these birds to resort for years to the same hole to spend the 

 night. This sleeping-hole is almost always excavated in a tree which is hollow 

 from the base to within a foot of the first limb. Sometimes two holes are bored 

 in the same tree, and if an attempt is made to catch the bird, it can escape by 

 going through either of the holes or else make its exit at the base. 



"If the season is a forward one the birds mate early in February and to- 

 wards the latter part of the month they begin to excavate their hole, which 

 requires exactly a month for completion. During the month of March, 1904, 

 I made observations on a pair which excavated their hole in a dead pine. On 

 March 21, the opening was commenced by the female, wdio drilled a small 

 hole, and by degrees enlarged it to the size of a silver dollar. The male assisted 

 in the excavation, but the female did by far the larger part of the work. The 

 size of the aperture was not increased until necessary to admit the shoulders 

 of the bird. I visited these birds every day in order to note the progress of 

 their work, and, being so accustomed to seeing me, they were utterly fearlesss 

 and I could, at any time, approach wdthin twenty feet without hindering the 

 work, although the hole was only about thirty feet from the ground. This 

 hole was completed on April 21, and the first egg was laid the following morn- 

 ing. As incubation commences upon the advent of the first egg, and as the 

 eggs are not laid consecutively, I did not again examine the contents of the 

 nest until April 26, when three eggs were found. Upon investigating the cavity 

 on April 28, and finding but three eggs, I concluded that the set was complete. 

 In this case the excavation was made under a dead limb, and was about eigh- 

 teen inches deep, being hollowed out more on one side than the other. This 

 Woodpecker is so attached to the tree in which it has first made its nest that 

 it continues to cling to it as long as it can find a suitable spot at which to exca- 

 vate a new hole. It never uses the same hole a second time. I know of a pair 

 of these birds which resorted to the same tree for four consecutive years, and 

 each year they excavated a new hole. 



"Another pair of these Woodpeckers bred in a gigantic dead pine for three 

 years, and as an illustration that their large holes are in great demand by other 



