THE MUSEUM. 



93 



great gray tree trunks. He seemed 

 as black and as big as a Crow, and 

 half audibly to myself I muttered 

 "Ifyloloiiiiis, the feathered woodcut- 

 ter." And it was as if a breath or 

 spirit of times and things gone had 

 started out of the silence of brooding 

 shadows; and my heart beat a little 

 faster, and I was lead on in a wild 

 chase which was to end with a better 

 view of this rare avis. 



And again I entered the woods with 

 my telescope, and at last was success- 

 ful in getting several good views of the 

 pair. And if one has never seen one 

 of these grand Woodpeckers, ■ 'at 

 large," it is worth any amount of 

 tramping and care to find them in the 

 setting of some fine remnant of "the 

 forest primeval;" to hear the lusty cry 

 of the male, and his roll-call on some 

 old stub, of some frozen still day of 

 winter, say, when the frosty heart of 

 every tree about, pays back a sym- 

 pathetic echo to the wooden 

 music; and to see the great black form 

 gallop away, now across the opening 

 in the light of day, now blacker 

 through the shadows, now in the light 

 again. To me, at least, this was a 

 memorable experience. 



Well has Dr. Elliott Coues charac- 

 terized this as "a very wild, wary, and 

 solitary bird." Farther on he says, 

 speaking of the nest, ' 'usually at a great 

 height; the taking of the eggs is some- 

 thing of an exploit, "--which I can 

 well believe having seen several holes, 

 undoubtedly of this pair by their great 

 size, up almost limbless trees and 

 snags from 50 to 70 feet, where one 

 would scarcely care to risk his bones 

 in climbing after the oological treas- 

 ures. 



The male stops hammering on his 

 favorite trees when nidification begins 

 and is silent till the middle of summer 

 when the brood is probably old enough 

 to shift for itself, when early and late 

 I have heard his noise, the first thing 

 in the morning upon awaking, and all 

 day. While on still damp days his 

 hammer could easily be heard a mile 



away. I regret that I could not watch 

 this pair closely during the nesting 

 period, when work of this kind was 

 impossible for mc. 



But this rare bird is so nearly elim- 

 inated from the avifauna of Ohio 

 that any notes of its last appearance 

 cannot but be of interest. 



Mr. Oberholers in his valuable "Pre- 

 liminary List of the Birds of Wayne 

 County, Ohio," records the last known 

 specimen taken in that county for 

 about 1883. 



Within the last year much of the 

 heaviest timber of this neighborhood 

 has fallen to the greed of gain and the 

 relentless hunger of the portable saw- 

 mill, and I have searched the old 

 haunts and listened in vain for the one 

 real relic of the wild days and scenes 

 where the "red-skin," braves, buffalo, 

 and "log cock" formed part of the 

 primeval vastness. 



.\ few figures of the wood-cutting of 

 this feathered woodman will prove 

 how deserving he is of his Greek name 

 — HylotoviKs. 



In passing through the woods inhab- 

 ited by these birds, I one day came 

 upon a bass-wood tree 17 inches in 

 diameter in which had been located a 

 colony of black ants. Two of these 

 holes made on the nordi side of the 

 tree measured respectively 6 inches 

 long, 2'\ inches wide, 7'! inches deep; 

 5 inches long, 3 inches wide, 6.\ inches 

 deep. The hole on the south side of 

 the tree was 4.^ inches long, 2;j inches 

 wide, 5 inches deep. The abundance 

 and size of the chips scattered around 

 gave the place quite the air of a work- 

 shop. Fragments were tossed six feet 

 from the tree. One of these chips 

 'was2j inches long, i ', inches wide, 

 and J inch thick. Another was 4 

 inches long, and though there were 

 many of similiar size, yet these were 

 the largest. This tree was not rotten 

 but solid wood. It is interesting to 

 note that each of these three holes 

 struck the nest at a different point, 

 but that they all touched the heart or 

 main chamber of it. How were they 



