ALABAMA. 131 



birds, and particularly of woodpeckers. He lost himself in 

 the forest one day in June, and in a dense part of the 

 woodland, from the midst of a tall clump of dead pines, 

 he heard a note proceeding like the clang of a trumpet, 

 resounding in the deep silence and waking all the forest 

 echoes. These extraordinary sounds came from a pair of 

 ivory-billed woodpeckers, the largest and most splendid of 

 all the Picus tribe. Piais principalis is a huge fellow, 

 nearly two feet long, glossy black and white, with a tower- 

 ing conical crest of bright crimson, and, what is the main 

 distinction of the species, a polished and fluted beak, four 

 inches long, which looks as though it were carved out of 

 the purest ivory. With this pickaxe of shell-white bone, 

 the bird hews away the dead wood as it hangs openly on 

 the perpendicular trunk of a tree, its head thrown back 

 and its golden-yellow eyes alert for insects. It is far from 

 being common, and my father was glad to secure these 

 specimens, which were in fine plumage. Other wood- 

 peckers were nearer to his daily haunts. One evening a 

 boy came to him and told him of a gold-winged wood- 

 pecker {Piais aitratus) at his very door. The schoolboy 

 had found a deep and commodious chamber dug out in the 

 decaying trunk of a pine-tree in Mr. Bohanan's peach- 

 orchard. In the twilight the pair of marauders set forth, 

 carrying a ladder w^ith them. After throwing up a few 

 stones to frighten out the old bird, she suddenly rushed 

 out, and left the coast clear. "The boy," Philip Gosse 

 writes, " pulled out one of the callow young, which I gently 

 examined. It was nearly fledged ; the young feathers of 

 the wings being very conspicuous from their bright golden 

 colour. It was not pretty — young birds seldom are. I 

 soon put it back again, and then, whether the rest were 

 congratulating it on its return, or what, I don't know, but 

 if you had heard the odd snoring or hissing that the family 



