i8 A RED-HEADED FAMILY. 



habit, though seeking their food in places be- 

 neath the notice of their great progenitor, 

 have preserved in a marked degree an outline 

 of the ivory-bill's color-masses, degenerate 

 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 er gret 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 



