52 THE , ARCHITECTURE OF BIRDS. 



ries of the city of Philadelphia : two in the button- 

 wood (Platanus occidentalis), and one in the decayed 

 limb of an elm. " The old ones," he says, " I ob- 

 serve, make their excursions regularly to the woods 

 beyond the Schuylkill, about a mile distant ; pre- 

 serving great silence and circumspection in visiting 

 their nests ; precautions not much attended to by 

 them in the depths of the woods, because there the 

 prying eye of man is less to be dreaded. But not- 

 withstanding the care which this bird, in common 

 with the rest of its genus, takes to place its young 

 beyond the reach of enemies, within the hollows of 

 trees, yet there is one deadly foe, against whose dep- 

 redations neither the height of the tree nor the depth 

 of the cavity is the least security. This is the black- 

 snake (Colubor constrictor), who frequently glides up 

 the trunk of the tree, and, like a skulking savage, en- 

 ters the woodpecker's peaceful apartment, devours 

 the eggs or helpless young, in spite of the cries and 

 flutterings of the parents ; and, if the place be large 

 enough, coils himself up in the spot they occupied, 

 where he will sometimes remain for several days. 

 The eager schoolboy, after hazarding his neck to 

 reach the woodpecker's hole, at the triumphant mo- 

 ment when he thinks the nestlings his own, and strips 

 his arm, launching it down into the cavity, and grasp- 

 ing what he conceives to be the callow young, starts 

 with horror at the sight of a hideous snake, and almost 

 drops from his giddy pinnacle, retreating down the 

 tree with terror and precipitation. Several adven- 

 tures of this kind have come to my knowledge ; and 

 one of them that was attended with serious conse- 

 quences, where both boy and snake fell to the ground, 

 and a broken thigh and long confinement cured the 

 adventurer completely of his ambition for robbing 

 woodpeckers' nests."* 



Were we merely to judge from the bill alone, we 

 should be disposed to consider the ivory-billed wood- 



* Wilson's Amer. Ornith., i., 146. 



