THE UOLOGIST. 



27 



crs, iufluilin^' Hij'iitiiniiix j>il(i,it"s. n'^n,llly 

 make their exonvatioiis iu the shape of a 

 gniiluiilly widening ijocket. "i which the 

 entrance is the narrowest part. 



It is curious to note that (bef^iuniui^ with 

 the ivory -bill and coming down the line of 

 species iu the scale of size) we find the red 

 mark on the head rapidly falling away from 

 a grand scarlet crest some inches in height 

 to a mere touch of carmine or dragons 

 1 lood on crown, nape, cheek, or chin. 

 The lofty and brilliant head-phime of the 

 ivory-biil, bis powerful beak, his semi-cir- 

 cular claws and his perfectly spiked tail, as 

 well as his superiority of size and strength, 

 indicate that he is what he is, the original 

 type of the woodpecker, and the <me iiure 

 species left to us in America. He is the 

 only woodpecker wh.ch eats insects and 

 larv;e (dug out of rotten wood) exclusively. 

 Neither the sweetest frnits nor the oiliest 

 grains can tempt him to depait one line 

 from his hereditary habit. He accepts no 

 gifts from man, and a-Us no favors. But 

 the pileate 1 woo(l})i^cker. ju-t one remove 

 lower iu the .scale of size, strength and 

 beaty, shows a liittle tendency towards a 

 grain and fiuit diet, and it also often t\e- 

 scends lo old logs and fallen boughs for its 

 food, a thing never thought I'f by the ivory- 

 bill. As for the rest of the red head family, 

 they are degenerate species, though lively, 

 clever and exceedingly interesting. What a 

 sad dwarf the little downy woodpecker is 

 wlien ci)mi)ared with the ivory-bill! and 

 yet to my mii.d it is (rlear that Pichk jmhex- 

 cf'U.f is the degenerate off-shoot fi'om the 

 grand ainiprp/iiln.i trunk. 



Our redheaded woodpecker (3/. t rytJim- 

 rephiilu.t) is a gentiine American in every 

 sense, a plausible, tpierulou.s, aggressive, 

 enterprising, crafty fellow, who tries every 

 mode of getting a livelihood, and always 

 with success. He is a woodpecker, a nut- 

 eater, a cider-taster, a judge of good fruits, 

 a connoisseur of corn, wheat and melons, 

 and an expert flycatcher as well. As if to 

 correspond with this versatility of habit, his 

 plumage is divided into four regular mas.ses 

 of color. His head and neck are crimson, 

 his back, down to secondaries, a brilliant 



bl;H-k, tinged with trreenor blue in the gloss: 

 then comes a broad girdle of pure white, 

 followed by a mass of black at the tjul and 

 wing-tips. He readily adapts himself to 

 the exigencies of civilized life. I prophecy 

 that, within less than a hundred years to 

 come, he will be making his nest on the 

 ground, in hedges or in the crotches of or- 

 chard trees. Already he has begun to push 

 his w^ay out into o:ir smaller Western \n-A\- 

 rles, where there is no dead timb?r for him 

 to make his nest-h lies in. 1 fo^nd a coiu- 

 proniise-nest between two fence-rails in 

 Illinois, which was probably a fair index of 

 the future habit of the red-head. It was 

 formed by pecking away the inner sides of 

 two vertical parallel rails, just above a hor- 

 izontal one. upon which, in a cuj) of 

 pulverized wood, the egi^s were laid. This 

 was in the prairie cimutry lietweej two vast 

 fields of Indian corn. 



The power of sight exhibited by the re<l- 

 headed woodpecker is quite amazing. I 

 have seen the bird, iu the eiily tvvdight of 

 a summer eveuiui^, start from the highest 

 spire of a very tall tree, and fly a hundred 

 \ards straight to an insect near the ground. 

 He catches flies on the wing with as deft a 

 turn as does the great-crested fliy-catcher. 

 It is not my purpose to offer any ornithol- 

 ogical theories in this paper: but I cannot 

 help remarking that the farther a species of 

 woodpecker departs from the feeding-habit 

 nf the ivory-bill, the more broken up are 

 its color-masses, and the more diffused or 

 degenerate becomes the typical red tnft on 

 the head. The golden-winged w<)odpecker 

 {Vohiptex (iin'iiiiix). for instance, feeds much 

 on the ground, eating earth-worms, seeds, 

 beetles etc.: and we tind him taking on the 

 colors of the ground -birds with a large U>ss 

 of the characteristic woodpecker arrange- 

 ment of plumage and color-masses. He 

 looks much more like a meadow-lark than 

 hke an ivory-bill! The red appears in a 

 delicate crescent, barely noticeable on the 

 hack of the head, and its bill is slender 

 curved and quite unfit for hard pecking. 

 On the other hand, the downy woodpecker 

 and the hairy w()o<liiecker. having kept well 

 in the line of the typical fee liu..,' habit. 



