DELAWARE VALLEY ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB 15 



was tramping over the mountains in a driving snow-storm with 

 Harlow on the back way from a Raven's nest when he showed 

 me scores of holes made by Pileated Woodpeckers in rather 

 small trees near the top of a mountain. We saw no traces of 

 any of the birds and I was so nearly frozen that probably I 

 would not have recognized one if I had seen it. 



My chance finally came in May, 1919. Harlow of State Col- 

 lege is probably the best field-man in the United States and the 

 only one who has ever found the nests of over one hundred dif- 

 ferent species of birds in a single season, his record being one 

 hundred and one species in 1915. Accordingly when he prom- 

 ised to show me not only a Pileated Woodpecker but a Pileated 

 Woodpecker's nest and eggs I was delighted. On the night of 

 May 10, 1919, I met him in the smoking-room of a sleeper and 

 the trip was on. 



The next morning the intelligent porter informed us that we 

 had three-quarters of an hour before reaching our station in 

 Center County, Pa. I was shaving with nothing on but a shirt 

 and a pair of shoes when the train stopped and the conductor 

 told us we had just two minutes to get dressed and off the train. 

 I put on one minute's worth of clothes, crammed the rest into 

 my bag and covered with lather jumped off as the train started. 

 As I ran the porter tried to explain that the train had made up 

 time, evidently forty-five minutes in less than five. 



We took a stage to the beginning of the mountains and crossed 

 them to the lonely valley where the Pileated Woodpeckers live. 

 This was on May 11, 1919. On the way over we discussed lit- 

 erature. Harlow felt strongly that all poets should be com- 

 pelled by law to take a course in ornithology, having recently 

 read a bit of verse in which the Bluebird and the Goldfinch 

 were described as nesting at the same time. 



On the way over we heard the Alder Flycatcher, the mating- 

 notes of the Field Sparrow and the Hairy Woodpecker, while 

 halfway up the mountain a Hummingbird came whirring 

 through the rain like a great moth. Everywhere were the green 

 and white of the flowering dogwood and the pure pink and white 

 flowers of the azalea with their dark red stems, curved red 

 stamens with golden ends and faint elusive odor of sandalwood. 



