The Audubon Magazine. 



Vol. II. 



AUGUST, i8SS. 



No. 7. 



THE PILEATED WOODPECKER. 



MOST of our readers are familiar with 

 the smaller woodpeckers, so com- 

 mon in our forests and orchards, but per- 

 haps few of them have ever seen the great 

 bird which we figure this month. The 

 Pileated Woodpecker, or, as it is sometimes 

 called by the farmer, the Woodcock or Log- 

 cock, is as large as a pigeon. It is found 

 in more or less abundance over the whole 

 of North America, wherever heavy timber 

 grows, and yet it is nowhere abundant. 

 One bird, or perhaps one family of birds, 

 occupies a large territory, and even though 

 one may be traveling all day through the 

 forest, he will not be likely to see more 

 than one or two Pileated Woodpeckers. 

 As the woods are cleared away before the 

 advance of civilization, these birds with- 

 draw also, for they are shy and solitary in 

 habit, and are not contented save in the 

 deepest recesses of the loneliest forest 

 aisles. We have found this species more 

 abundant in Washington Territory than 

 we remember to have seen it elsewhere. 

 Not only is this species fond of the deep 

 forests, but he is a very shy bird as well. 

 He doesn't like to have any one get too 

 near him, and watches with his keen eye 

 the movements of any strange object. We 

 have more often obtained a close view of this 

 bird by his flying to and alighting near us 

 when we were sitting still and entirely ignor- 

 ant that he was in the neighborhood, than by 

 endeavoring to approach him. His eyes 



and ears are both quick, and are constantly 

 on the alert, and usually, no matter how 

 carefully the approach may be made, it will 

 be found that the bird is fully aware of 

 what is taking place, and as soon as he has 

 satisfied himself that he is the object of 

 these stealthy movements, he is off with a 

 loud cackling cry, and has soon put half a 

 mile of distance between the suspected 

 person and himself. 



In those localities which suit his tastes, 

 the Pileated Woodpecker is resident the 

 year round. Cold weather has no terrors 

 for him, and he seeks his living just as un- 

 concernedly amid whirling snows and in 

 biting frosts, as during the gentle rains of 

 April or under the torrid sun of August. 



In the early spring, these Woodpeckers 

 mate, and begin to prepare a nesting place. 

 They choose some great tree deep in the 

 forest, and attack it with their stout sharp 

 bills, boring in it a hole from two and one- 

 half to three inches in diameter at the 

 mouth and sometimes eighteen inches deep. 

 At the bottom the cavity is somewhat larger 

 than at the entrance, being five or six inches 

 in diameter. Here, on a bed of chips left 

 for a lining to the nest, five or six eggs are 

 deposited, pure white, shining and glossy 

 like porcelain. These eggs are about as 

 large as those of a common pigeon. Both 

 male and female take part in the labor of 

 hatching, and each brings food at frequent 

 intervals to its mate on the nest. After the 



