THE WOODPECKERS: BIRD FRIENDS OF OUR FORESTS 



689 



THE PILEATED WOODPt..^KcR 



Fig. 9. An adult male of this species has a length of nearly 

 twenty inches, and is a wonderfully handsome bird with its 

 black and white plumage and brilliant crest of red. Photograph 

 by the, author. Courtesy of the United States National Museum. 



region are not few by any means. It has but one rival 

 in our avifauna, namely the Pileated Woodpecker a 

 much smaller species and not so brilliantly plumaged, 

 which will be described further along. 



Audubon gives us a very unusual account of the 

 Ivory-bill, stating that it "confines its rambles to a 

 comparatively small portion of the United States, it 

 never having been observed in the Middle States within 

 the memory of any person now living there." Yet he 

 tdls us in the next paragrapih that "the species may be 

 accidentally seen in Maryland," and that it occurs all 

 over the South, westward to Texas, and northward to the 

 Ohio River! 



He apparently gives us at least one excellent reason 

 for its gradual disappearance when he says: "Travelers 



of all nations are also fond of possessing the upper part 

 of the head and bill of the male, and I have frequently 

 remarked, that on a steamboat's reaching what we call 

 a wooding-place, the strangers were very apt to pay a 

 quarter of a dollar for two or three heads of this wood- 

 pecker. I have seen entire belts of Indian chiefs closely 

 ornamented with the tufts and bills of this species, and 

 have observed that a great value is frequently put upon 

 them." 



Wilson, who gave us some very amusing accounts of 

 his experiences with a captive Ivory-bill he once had, 

 emphatically states that the species is a most powerful 

 protector of our forests, in that it consumes as food no 

 end of destructive inseats and their larvae. 



From the famous Ivory-bill we pass to rather a long 

 list of woodpeckers that exhibit certain patterns of black 

 and white in their plumages, while the males may have 

 a patch or small patches of bright red at the back of the 

 head. The black and white is generously arranged in 

 longitudinal bars on the head with transverse ones on the 

 wings, while the lower parts are entirely white, with the 

 upper one centrally white and black on either side. 



THE RED-HEADED WOODPECKER 



Fig 10. The one here shown is a full-plumaged male, and was 

 photographed from life, natural size, by the author. The young 

 have a plumage entirely different from their parents, the latter 

 being very conspicuously marked, as set forth in the article. 



