THE OOLOGIST 



387 



With a broken wing he could no more 

 seek 

 To rise in the glare of day — 

 So the monarch that reigned on the 

 mountain peak, 

 Was carried a captive away. 

 From "The Cabinet of Natural His- 

 tory and American Rural Sports," Vol. 

 I (1830), p. 239. 



The Pileated Woodpecker. 



The Pileated Woodpecker may be 

 called the king of woodpeckers, for 

 though it is exceeded in size by the 

 Ivory-billed Woodpecker of the South- 

 ern States, the latter bird is so near 

 extinct that it may be neglected en- 

 tirely. In regard to its habitat, 

 Stearns says in New England Bird 

 Life, "All of the 'forest primeval' still 

 harbors the great, black, scarlet-crest- 

 ed woodman, chilis of whose powerful 

 chiselling are still scattered at the 

 feet of many a decrepit monarch." 



To put this into other words, this 

 great woodpecker is found all over 

 North America where the old growth 

 forest still remains, being rare or 

 casual in the more cultivated parts 

 and in the wooded prairie regions. In 

 Southern Maine this bird is still found, 

 though in small numbers; it is prob- 

 ably more often seen in winter than in 

 summer for at that season it is usually 

 found in the depths of the forest car- 

 ing for its offspring. 



The eggs of this bird are very rare 

 in the collections of this locality and 

 there are none to my knowledge which 

 contain a complete set, though there 

 are one or two containing single eggs. 

 For many years I have tried to obtain 

 one of these eggs, but have always 

 failed to do so for the owners would 

 not part with them even if offered a 

 gold mine. 



Way back in the spring of 1886 I 

 was passing through a piece of old 

 growth woods not far from home when 



we saw a large round hole in a dead 

 stub; we knew it was too large for a 

 Flicker's nest and stopped to investi- 

 gate. As we were looking at it while 

 standing some distance away, a Pileat- 

 ed Woodpecker flew to the stub and 

 disappeared in the hole. We felt sure 

 that the bird had a nest in the stub 

 and were highly elated at our good 

 fortune. We decided not to disturb 

 the nest as we felt sure that it was 

 too early to find a full set of eggs. We 

 waited until the 10th of May before 

 we visited the nest again. 



When we reached the stub, my 

 friend, who was the lighter, volunteer- 

 ed to climb it, though it was old and 

 rather rotten. Not having any climb- 

 ing irons he started up, making rather 

 slow headway, for the stub swayed 

 and shook in a way that threatened to 

 throw him to the ground at any mo- 

 ment. After a climb of about twenty- 

 five feet he reached the nest and dig- 

 ging carefully through the rotten wood 

 he found that the eggs had not been 

 laid. 



We were bitterly disappointed at 

 losing the set of eggs, but as we were 

 young collectors we made no attempt 

 to stop up the hole we had made in the 

 stub, thinking it was useless; for we 

 believed that the birds would desert 

 the nest. I have since found that we 

 were wrong and devised a method by 

 which the eggs can be obtained with- 

 out risk of the nest being deserted un- 

 til the set is laid. This method will 

 be explained later on. This stub was 

 on a high, rocky ridge — a very un- 

 usual place for these birds to nest as 

 they generally prefer swamps. 



For many years after this first ex- 

 perience, my acquaintance with this 

 species was limited to an occasional 

 glimpse of one of these birds in the 

 woods, though sometimes in the win- 

 ter one would be seen flying from one 

 woods to another. I felt sure that 



