178 Bird Studies. 



the head and under parts throughout are dull whitish ash, with the middle of the 

 belly and the region below the bill and often the breast tinged or suffused 

 with scarlet. The female is like the male except that the scarlet of the upper 

 parts is confined to the back of the head and neck and region about the nos- 

 trils, the crown being ashy gray. 



The nest is built in holes in trees excavated by the birds, where four to 

 six white ecrors are laid. These are about an inch long and a little less than 

 three quarters of an inch in their other diameter. 



The birds are found in Eastern North America north regularly to Mary- 

 land on the coast, and to Dakota and Ontario in the interior. They breed 

 from Florida throughout their range, and winter from Virginia and Ohio south. 



When great unbroken forests clothed what are now the farming and 

 agricultural lands of the Eastern United States ; when Manhattan Island 

 Pileated Wood- ^'^^ wooded and the Indians traded their beaver skins 

 pecker. captured in the streams of Westchester County with the 



ceophioeus piieatus (Linn.i. Dutchuien in tlic vlllagc of New Amsterdam ; when the 

 buffalo ranged into Ohio and even Western New York, probably on upper 

 Broadway the woods were inhabited by a very large black woodpecker, 

 known as the Pileated Woodpecker or Logcock. 



But the Indians and buffaloes and Dutchmen are almost traditions now, 

 and the great Woodpecker of the primeval forest has disappeared with 

 their felling and is now practically restricted to the more remote localities 

 where such forests still obtain. There he still is a comparatively common 

 bird, be it in Florida or Maine. 



Nearly a foot and a half long, of a general dusky black color, the male 

 has a bright scarlet crown, with the feathers at the back of the head elon- 

 gated into a pointed crest. There is a white border line to this crest sepa- 

 rating it from the dusky region back of the eye. Another line begins at the 

 nostrils and extends well down on the sides of the neck. It is of a general 

 yellowish tinge at its starting point, becoming clear white on the sides of the 

 face and neck. The lower parts are dusky black, the feathers being more or 

 less tipped with yellowish white. The throat is white or yellowish white 

 bordered by a scarlet patch extending back from the lower part of the bill. 

 The winof feathers are white at their bases. 



The female is similar to the male. The red of the head however is 

 limited to the crest and there is no red patch at the base of the bill. 



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