440 THE NORTHERN PILEATED WOODPECKER. 
development of the hyoid bones with their muscular attachments. These 
extend backward from the base of the tongue over and around the skull, 
nearly to the upper base of the bird’s bill again. 
The great forest fires which have ravaged our State have proved a god- 
send to the Woodpeckers, altho they are in no way responsible for them. 
The Pileated Woodpecker does his share in staying the ravages of the wood- 
working insects, but he is even more interested in the spoliation of fallen logs 
and so hastens rather than retards decay. A pair of these Woodpeckers will 
gradually tear a rotten log to pieces in pursuit of the grubs and wood-boring 
ants which it harbors. They are shy or confiding just in proportion to the 
amount of persecution which they have been called upon to endure. I have 
waited half a day trying to get a specimen, and again I have sat under a 
shower of chips or 
ogled a busy pair in 
the open at forty feet. 
The Log-cock has a 
variety of notes, and 
one who learns them 
will find the bird much 
more common than he 
may have supposed. 
The most noteworthy 
of these is a_ high- 
pitched stentorian call, 
which is not exactly 
laughter, altho some- 
thing like it in form, 
hii ha ha ha ha ha ha 
ha hii. “At a distance 
this call sounds me- 
tallic ; but when at close 
range it is sent echoing 
thru the forest, it is 
full and clear, and it is 
the most untamably 
wild sound among bird 
notes.” 
In this connection I 
wish to mention a mys- 
terious sound which I 
have several times 
Taken in Pierce County. Photo by J. H. Bowles. 
heard in the depths of PILEATED WOODPECKER LEAVING NEST. 
