374 THE WOODPECKER. 



below ; the wing is lined with yellowish white ; the legs are 

 about an inch and a quarter long, the exterior toe about the 

 same length, the claws exactly semicircular and remarkably 

 powerful, the whole of a light blue or lead color. The female 

 is about half an inch shorter, the bill rather less, and the whole 

 plumage of the head black, glossed with green ; in the other 

 parts of the plumage she exactly resembles the male. 



The Pileated Woodpecker (P. Pileatus) is the second in 

 size among his tribe, and may be styled the Great Northern 

 Chief of the Woodpeckers, though, in fact, his range extends 

 over the whole of the United States, from the interior of Can- 

 ada to the gulf of Mexico. He is very numerous in the Gen- 

 nesee country, and in all the tracts of high-timbered forests, 

 particularly in the neighborhood of our large rivers, where he 

 is noted for making a loud and almost incessant cackling be- 

 fore wet weather ; flying at such times in a restless manner 

 from tree to tree, making the Avoods echo to his outcry. In 

 Pennsylvania, and the northern states, he is called the Black 

 Woodcock; in the southern states, the Logcock. Almost 

 every old trunk in the forest where he resides, bears the 

 marks of his chisel. Wherever he perceives a tree beginning 

 to decay, he examines it round and round with great skill and 

 dexterity, strips off the bark in sheets of five or six feet in 

 length to get at the hidden cause of the disease, and labors 

 with a gayety and activity really surprising. Whether en- 

 gaged in flying from tree to tree, in digging, climbing, or 

 barking, he seems perpetually in a hurry. He is extremely 

 hard to kill, clinging close to the tree even after he has re- 

 ceived his mortal wound: nor yielding up his hold but with 

 his expiring breath. If slightly wounded in the wing, and 

 dropped while flying, he instantly makes for the nearest tree, 

 and strikes, with great bitterness, at the hand stretched out to 

 seize him ; and can rarely be reconciled to confinement. He 

 is sometimes observed among the hills of Indian corn, and it 

 is said by some that he frequently feeds on it. Complaints of 

 this kind are, however, not general } many farmers doubting 

 the fact, and conceiving that at these times he is in search of 



