36 B Y- WA YS AND ^BIRD-NO TES. 



though they are. The dwarfish, insignificant 

 looking Picus pubescens pecking away at the 

 stem of a dead iron-weed to get the minute 

 larvae 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. It is 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 : 



" I 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 ergret 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 



