KNIGHTS OF THE CHISEL 



red head and neck. This spring about the middle of 

 May, a pair of them put in their appearance at a farm 

 some two miles from where I live. They seemed to 

 like it and stayed about the row of fine old sugar 

 maples and other shade trees along the street. Ned and 

 I did hope that they would remain for the summer, but 

 in a few days they grew restless and moved on. Years 

 and years ago they used to be quite plenty in New 

 England, but now they are rare and we must go further 

 south and west to find them. When I was a boy, a 

 flock of them came to the suburbs of Boston and stayed 

 all the fall, and a few well into the winter. I could 

 almost always find them in a certain grove of nice large 

 oaks, and I improved this only opportunity I ever had 

 to know them till I extended my bird searchings to 

 other sections. 



There is another of this gentry of the chisel which 

 has mostly disappeared from the middle districts where 

 it was once well known, the great black and white 

 Pileated Woodpecker, which is as big as a crow. It is 

 common yet in the north woods, and, curiously, in the 

 extreme south. I have met it in Florida, and it seemed 

 strange enough to see these great climbers, which 

 seemed too large to be woodpeckers. They make a 

 prodigious noise with their hammering, and tear off 

 great strips of bark from decaying trees. They are 

 only rarely seen in southern New England. I know 

 two reliable people who have seen them in western 

 Connecticut quite recently; one instance was of a 



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