Ivory-billed and Pileated Woodpeckers 599 



(Campephilus), of which more than a dozen species are known, ranging from the 

 southern United States through Cuba, Central America, and South America to 

 Uruguay and Argentina. The typical Ivory-billed Woodpecker (C. principalis} is 

 principally glossy blue-black, with the shoulders, secondaries, and a stripe on 

 each side of the neck pure white, and a splendid crest of scarlet; the bill is ivory- 

 white, whence of course the name; the length is twenty or twenty-one inches. 

 The female is similar, but has the crest blue-black instead of scarlet. This species 

 was formerly distributed, though not very abundantly, from the southern Atlantic 

 and Gulf States northward to North Carolina, Missouri, and southern Indiana, 

 but it is now exceedingly rare, perhaps on the verge of extinction, and is mainly 

 confined to the cypress swamps of southern Florida and the lower Mississippi 

 Valley. It is ever a wild and suspicious bird, quickly retiring before the advance 

 of civilization and finding refuge in the dense, all but impenetrable, swamps 

 of the extreme south. It is also a very silent bird, especially during the breeding 

 season, and is said not to make a sound at this time. It, however, drums loudly 

 as a call for its mate. Its food consists of wood-boring insects, in securing which 

 it shows great energy, as well as skill. "The nest," says a correspondent of 

 Major Bendire, " is generally placed in a cypress or tupelo gum tree, one that 

 is practically dead being preferred, and the cavity is excavated in the dead part 

 of the tree. I have never found a nest in wood in which there was sap, or in 

 rotten wood." 



Another species of this genus is the Imperial Woodpecker (C. imperialis] 

 of western Mexico, which is even larger than the Ivory-bill, having a length of 

 twenty-three or twenty- four inches; it is similar in plumage, but lacks the white 

 stripes on the sides of the neck. 



The Pileated Woodpecker, Cock of the Woods, or Logcock (Ceophlceus pileatus), 

 as it is variously called, is the representative selected of the other American 

 genus of large Woodpeckers. It is about seventeen inches long, of a uniform 

 dull dusky slate color or sooty blackish, with the chin, throat, two stripes on the 

 side of the head, one on the side of the neck, and the basal half of the quills 

 white, somewhat tinged with sulphur-yellow; the whole top of the head, includ- 

 ing a prominent crest, and in the male a broad stripe on the lower jaw, is 

 scarlet. This species is found in heavily wooded districts throughout the whole 

 of North America, and has recently been separated into two geographical races, 

 the southern, which is the typical form, and a northern (C. p. abieticola), which 

 is somewhat larger and has a more extensive area of white. The southern race 

 is still quite abundant in the heavily forested regions of Florida and the Gulf 

 States, but the northern form is much less abundant than formerly, disappearing 

 as the forests have been removed. In localities where it has been much hunted 

 it has become exceedingly shy and wary, but in other places, especially in the 

 South and West, it is not particularly wild. Its flight, when not hurried, is rather 

 slow and Crow-like, but at other times it is both strong and swift; at all times it 

 is more direct and not so undulating as in most Woodpeckers. The nesting site 

 is usually a dead tree in extensive woods, and is almost always located in the 

 main trunk. The entrance is three or three and a half inches in diameter, 



