Log-Cock or Pileated "Woodpecker 17 



his earnestness and preoccupation. With such energy did 

 he hammer that his whole body shook and his wings quivered, 

 while the splendid scarlet of his loose hair-like crest flowed 

 in the bright spring sunshine, added to which his scarlet 

 mustaches gave him a distinguished and savage air. 



Later in the season I placed my camera high in a neighbor- 

 ing birch and waited beneath with more or less patience 

 vainly hoping to catch him in the act. But he must have been 

 haunting some distant portion of his range, for he never 

 came near. 



Several years since the big tulip-tree came down in a storm 

 and I miss the wonderful roll that used to travel so far. 

 Occasionally I heard his bill on some punky old snag, but it 

 is not probable that he will ever find another sounding board 

 comparable with the old white wood arm. 



This is the only Pileated Woodpecker I ever saw beat upon 

 a horizontal limb by habit. This is the only case that has come 

 under my observation where a log-cock has selected a hori- 

 zontal sounding board. 



I afterward sought in the debris of the uprooted tulip for 

 this musical limb, but it was impossible to discover a trace 

 of it more than if so wonderful a thing had been whisked off 

 by magic. It would have been good to have taken its caliber 

 and that of the cavity within and to have examined that 

 smooth hard spot where he had smote full lustily so oft. 



The roll of the Pileated woodpecker is one of the most 

 impressive sounds in nature, and among the noblest of spring, 

 being most frequently heard on still, humid mornings when 

 the air seems hungering to transmit sound; the earth is 

 vaporing, mellowing ripening for the plow. The glad strain 

 of the meadow-lark bursts everywhere from the ground, and 

 the cackle of the flicker comes from sunny places. All the 

 woodpecker tribe love to beat the tom-tom in such weather, 

 but the stately roll of Hylotomus easily lords it over all. It 

 is then as the gavel of the speaker calling the Whole House 

 of Nature to order after the defection and chaos of winter. 



