THE WOODPECKER. 373 



larvae. The Pileated Woodpecker is suspected of sometimes 

 tasting the Indian corn ; the Ivory-billed never. His common 

 note, repeated every three or four seconds, very much resem- 

 bles the tone of a trumpet, or the high note of a clarinet, and 

 can plainly be distinguished at the distance of more than half 

 a mile ; seeming to be immediately at hand, though perhaps 

 more than one hundred yards off. This it utters while 

 mounting along the trunk, or digging into it. At these times 

 it has a stately and novel appearance ; and the note instant- 

 ly attracts the notice of a stranger. Along the borders of the 

 Savannah river, between Savannah and Agusta, I found them 

 very frequently ; but my horse no sooner heard their trumpet- 

 like note, than remembering his former alarm, he became 

 almost ungovernable. 



The Ivory-billed Woodpecker is twenty inches long, and 

 thirty inches in extent ; the general color is black, with a con- 

 siderable gloss of green when exposed to a good light ; iris 

 of the eye vivid yellow ; nostrils covered with recumbent 

 white hairs ; fore part of the head black, rest of the crest of a 

 most splendid red, spotted at the bottom with white, which 

 is only seen when the crest is erected, as represented in the 

 plate ; this long red plumage being ash-colored at its base, 

 above that white, and ending in brilliant red ; a stripe of white 

 proceeds from a point, about half an inch below each eye, 

 passes down each side of the neck, and along the back, where 

 they are about an inch apart, nearly to the rump ; the first 

 five primaries are wholy black, on the next five the white 

 spreads from the tip higher and higher to the secondaries, 

 which are wholly white from their coverts downwards : these 

 markings, when the wings are shut, make the bird appear as 

 if his back were white, hence he has been called, by some of 

 our naturalists, the large White-backed Woodpecker; the 

 neck is long ; the beak an inch broad at the base, of the color 

 and consistence of ivory, prodigiously strong, and elegantly 

 fiuted ; the tail is black, tapering from the two exterior feath- 

 ers, which are three inches shorter than the middle ones, and 

 each feather has the singularity of being greatly concave 



