THE OOLOGIST. 



25 



r.ittle made famiUar to us all by the common 

 red-head ( Meliinerpes erythrocephalus) and 

 our other smaller woodpeckers. This pecu- 

 liar call is not, in my opinion, the result of 

 elasticity or springiness in the wood upon 

 which it is performed, but is effected by a 

 rapid, spasujodic motion of the birds head, 

 imparted by voluntary muscular action . I 

 have seen the common Eed-head make a 

 soundless call on a fence-stake where the 

 decaying wood was scarcely hard enough to 

 prevent the full entrance of his beak. 

 His head went through the same rapid vi- 

 bration, but no sound accompanied the 

 performance. Still, its resonance in the 

 wood that the bird desires, and it keeps 

 trying until a good sounding-board is found. 



It was very satisfying to me when the 

 superb King of the WoodjDeckers. pii" noir a 

 becblanc, as the great French naturalists 

 named it, went over the call, time after time 

 with grand effect, letting go between trials 

 one or two of his triumphant trumpet-notes. 

 Hitherto I had not seen the Campephilus 

 do this, though I had often heard what I 

 supposed to be the call. As I crouched in 

 my hiding-place and furtively watched the 

 proceedings, I remember comparing the 

 birds and their dwelling to some half -savage 

 lord and lady and their isolated castle of 

 medieval days. A twelfth century bandit 

 nobleman might have gloried in trigging 

 himself in such apparel as mj' ivory -billed 

 woodpecker vore. What a peifect athlete 

 he appeared to be. as he braced himself 

 for an effort which was to generate a force 

 sufficient to hurl his heavy head and beak 

 back and forth at a speed of about twenty- 

 eight strokes to the second! 



All of our woodpeckers, pure and simple, 

 that is, all of the species in which the wood- 

 pecker character has been preserved almost 

 unmodified, have exceedingly muscular 

 beads and strikingly constricted necks ; their 

 beaks are nearly straight, wedge-shaped, 

 fluted or rilibed on the iijiper mandible, and 

 their nostrils are protected by hairy or 

 feathery tufts. Their legs are strangely 

 short in appearatce, but are exactly adapted ; 

 to their need, and their tail-feathers are ' 

 tipped with stiff i>oints. These features are j 



fully developed in the Vamjiephilus princi- 

 palis, the bill especially showing a size, 

 strength and symmetrical beauty truly 

 wonderful . 



The stiff pointed tail-feathers of the 

 woodpecker serve the biid a turn which I 

 have never seen noted by anj ornithologist. 

 When the bird must sirike a hard blow with 

 its bill, it does not depend solely upon its 

 neck and head; but. bracing the jioints of 

 its tail-feathers against the tree, and rising 

 to the full lentith of its short, powerful legs, 

 and drawing back its body, head and neck 

 to the farthest extent, it dashes its bill 

 home with all the force of its entire bodily 

 weij^ht and muscle. I have seen the ivorj'- 

 bill, striking thus, burst off from almost 

 flinty-hard dead trees fragments of wood 

 half as large as my hand ; and once in the 

 Cherokee hills of Georjjia I watched a 

 pileated woodpecker ( Ilylutomvs pile::tt(8) 

 dig a hole to the verj' heart of an exceed- 

 ingly tough, green, mountain hickury tree, 

 in order to reach a ne«t of winged ants. 

 The point of ingress of the insects was a 

 small hole in a punk knot; biit tLe bird, by 

 hopping down the tree tail foremost and 

 listening, located the nest about live feet 

 below, and there it proceeded to bore 

 through the gnarled, cross-grained wood to 

 the hollow. 



Of all our wild American birds, 1 have 

 studied no other one which combines all of 

 the elements of wilduess so perfectly in its 

 character as does the ivory- billed wood- 

 peckerr It has no trace whatever in its 

 nature of what may be called a tameable 

 tendency. Savage liberty is a prec^uisite of 

 its existence, and its home is the depths of 

 the woods, remotest from the activities of 

 civilized man. It is a rare bird, even in the 

 most favorable regions, and it is almost 

 impossible to get specimens of its eggs. 

 Indeed, I doubt if there are a dozen cabinets 

 in all the world containing these eggs; but 

 they are almost exactlj' similar in size, color 

 and shape to those of JTylotomun pilentus, 

 the only difference being that the latter are, 

 ujDon close examination, found to be a little 

 shorter, and, as I have imagined, a shade 

 less semi-transparent porcelain white, if I 



