504 THE PILE A TED WOODPECKER. 



at top, and narrowing a very little. The eggs, which are 

 large in proportion to the bird, are a delicate cream-color 

 before being blown, and white after." 



Cuvier's Kinglet, Audubon gave on the authority of one 

 specimen from near the Schuylkill; and as it has never 

 been duplicated, it is supposed to have been some peculiar 

 specimen of the Golden-crown. A peculiar structural mark 

 of the Kinglets is the booted tarsus. 



THE PILEATED WOODPECKER. 



In the dense evergreen forests of Nova Scotia, visited only 

 by the lumberman or the hunter, may be found that giant 

 of his race, the Pileated Woodpecker, or Logcock, or Black 

 Woodcock (Hylotomus pileatus) . Some 18 or 19 inches long, 

 and 28 in extent, supporting himself against the tree with 

 a tail 6 inches long, the huge form is brownish-black; chin, 

 stripe under the eyes, down the sides of the neck, and ex- 

 panding under the wings, also a large patch at the base of 

 the primaries, white. In the male, the head and pointed 

 crest, and moustaches from the lower mandible, bright 

 scarlet; bill and feet, bluish-gray; iris, yellow. The female 

 has simply the crest scarlet. In flight, the white in the pri- 

 maries is especially conspicuous. 



The loud hammering of this large and vigorous bird on the 

 sonorous dried trees, compared with which the tapping of 

 the smaller species is but a weak noise, very soon becomes 

 familiar to the ear of the woodman; and may designate 

 the bird at a long distance. The old adage, " A workman 

 is known by his chips," certainly affirms much for the in- 

 dustry of this bird. In his search for insects, for which he 

 attacks the dead and dying trees, he will denude great 

 spaces of the trunk and larger branches in a short time, 

 heaping up the chips and strips of bark on the ground in 



