PILEATED WOODPECKER. 17 



Whether engaged 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 received 

 his mortal wound; nor yielding up his hold but with his expiring 

 breath. If slightly wounded in the wing, and dropt 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 insects which lie concealed in the husk. 

 I will not be positive that they never occasionally taste maize ; 

 yet I have opened and examined great numbers of these birds, 

 killed in various parts of the United States, from lake Ontario to 

 the Alatamaha river, but never found a grain of Indian corn in 

 their stomachs. 



The Pileated Woodpecker is not migratory, but braves the 

 extremes of both the arctic and torrid regions. Neither is he 

 gregarious, for it is rare to see more than one or two, or at the 

 most three, in company. Formerly they were numerous in the 

 neighbourhood of Philadelphia; but gradually as the old timber 

 fell, and the country became better cleared, they retreated to the 

 forest. At present few of those birds are to be found within ten 

 or fifteen miles of the city. 



Their nest is built, or rather the eggs are deposited, in the hole 

 of a tree, dug out by themselves, no other materials being used 

 but the soft chips of rotten wood. The female lays six large eggs 

 of a snowy whiteness; and, it is said, they generally raise two 

 broods in the same season. 



This species is eighteen inches long, and twenty-eight in ex- 

 tent; the general colour is a dusky brownish black; the head is 

 ornamented with a conical cap of bright scarlet; two scarlet mus- 

 taches proceed from the lower mandible; the chin is white; the 

 nostrils are covered with brownish white hair-like feathers, 

 and this stripe of white passes thence clown the side of the neck 



VOL. II. C 



