THE WOODPECKERS. 149 
laugh that thoroughly startled me. Looking up, I 
saw on a huge dead hemlock a Pileated Woodpecker, 
the ‘“‘ Black Log-cock” of which I had heard the bark- 
gatherers speak. The bird had not heard me call, and 
commenced at once a strange rattling of the dead wood 
of the old tree, for it had no bark, and at times uttered 
a loud clicking sound, as a hen’s cackle the moment 
she leaves her nest. Very soon another and then a 
third came, and the noise made by the three could, I 
think, have been heard a mile off. At a signal, or 
alarmed by the same real or fancied danger, they 
suddenly darted off, flying laboriously but rapidly 
down the rocky glen. Although I was near the 
same spot for many days after, I saw no more 
of them, but at night their call could at times be 
heard, and I was told that “they never slept unless 
the night was pitch dark.” I do not, however, ac- 
cept this statement as correct, and yet why should 
we doubt the assertions of those who have had 
every opportunity to observe birds and make a habit 
of doing so? 
In June, 1867, I rambled for several days in this 
same old woods and again saw these birds. There 
were two which I took to be mates, and this proved 
to be true, as a day later I found them again and saw 
the tree in which they had their nest. There were 
never two more noisy, wary, restless birds, and I had 
to content myself with glimpses now and then, and 
without a field-glass would probably not have seen 
them at all. 
In April, 1879, I was more fortunate. In Linn 
County, North Carolina, I found them abundant and 
na 
