36 BY-WAYVS AND BIRD-NOTES. 
though they are. The dwarfish, insignificant 
looking Picus pubescens pecking away at the 
stem of a dead iron-weed to get the minute 
larve that may be imbedded in the pith, when 
compared with Campephilus principalis drum- 
ming on the bole of a giant cypress-tree, is 
like a Digger Indian when catalogued in a col- 
umn with men like Goethe and Gladstone, 
Napoleon and Lincoln. 
I have been informed that the ivory-bill is 
occasionally found in the Ohio valley ; but I 
have never been able to discover it north of 
the Cumberland range of mountains. Itis a 
swamp bird, or rather it is the bird of the high 
timber that grows in low wet soil. Its princi- 
pal food is a large flat-headed timber-worm 
known in the South as borer or saw-worm, 
which it discovers by ear and reaches by dili- 
gent and tremendously effective pecking. A 
Cracker deer-stalker, whom I met at Black- 
shear, Georgia, gave an amusing account of an 
experience he had had in the swamps. He 
said : 
‘“‘T had turned in late, and got to sleep on 
a tussock under a big pine, an’ slep’ tell sun- 
up. Wull, es ther’ I laid flat er my back an’ 
er snorin’ away, kerwhack sumpen tuck me 
in the face an’ eyes, jes’ like spankin’ er 
baby, an’ I wuk up with er gret chunk er wood 
ercross my nose, an’ er blame ole woodcock 
jest er whangin’ erway up in thet pine. My 
nose hit bled an’ bled, an’ I hed er good mint 
er shoot thet air bird, but I cudn’t stan’ the 
expense er the thing. Powder’n’ lead air 
mighty costive. Anyhow I don’t s’pose ’at 
the ole woodcock knowed at hit’d drapped thet 
air fraygment onto me, Ef hit’d er ’peared 
