28 



THE OOLOGIST. 



thongb seeking their food in places beneath 

 the notice of their great progenitor, have 

 ))reserve(l in a niai'ked degree an outline of 

 the ivory-bill's color-masses, degenerate 

 though they are. The dwarfish, insignifi- 

 cant looking Pious pubesec lu pecking away 

 at the stem of a dead irou-weed to get the 

 uiiuute larvaj that may be imliedded in the 

 pith, when compared wi h Gampephilun 

 principnUK drumming on the bole of a giant 

 cypres-^-tree, is like a Digger Indian when 

 catalogued in a column with menhke Croethe 

 and (Tl;id.-5tone, Napoleon and Lincoln. 



I have been inform3d tint the ivory-bdl 

 is occasionally found in the Ohio valley; 

 but I have never been able to discover it 

 north of the Cumberland range of mouutai..s. 

 It 18 a swamp bird, or rather it is the bird 

 of the high timber that grows in the low 

 wet soil; its principal food is a large fia*- 

 licaded timber-worm, known in the South 

 as liorei' or sair-irorm, which it discovers by 

 ear and reaches by d.ligent and tremeuduus- 

 ly effective pecking. A Cracker deer- 

 stalker whom I met at Blackshear, Georgia, 

 gave au amusing account of an experience 

 he had had in the swamps. He said : 



"I had turned in late, and got to sleep on 

 a tussock under a big pine, an' slep' tell 

 sunup. Wull, es ther' I laid fiat er my 

 bar-k an' er snoriu' away, kerwhack sumpeu 

 tuck me in the face an' eyes, jes' like spank- 

 in' er baby, an' I wiik up with er gret chunk 

 er wood er cross my nose, an' er blame ole 

 woodcock jest er whangin' erway up in tliet 

 pine. My nose hit bled an' bled, an' I hod 

 er good mint er shoot thet air bird, bat I 

 cudu't stall' the expense er the thing. 

 Powder'u" lead air mighty costive. Anyhow 

 I don't s'pose "at the ole woodcock knovved 

 'at hit'd drapped thet air fraygment onto me. 

 Ef hit'd er 'peared like's ef hit wer' 'joyin' 

 the i"ke any, I wud er shot hit all ter pieces 

 ef Id er hed ter lived on lurpentime all 

 winter!" 



Of the American Woodpecker there are 

 UKire than thirty varieties, I believe, nearly 

 every one of which bears some trace of the 

 grand scarlet crown o f the great ivory-billed 

 king of them all. The (juestion arises, and 

 I shall not attempt to auswer it, whether the 



ivory bill is an example of the highest de- 

 velopment, from the downy woodpecker, 

 say, or whether all these inferior species and 

 varieties are the result of degeneracy ? 

 Neither Darwin nor Wal'ace has given us 

 the key that certainly unlocks this very 

 interesting mystery. 



The sap-driuking woodpeckers {t^phro- 

 plous), of which there are three or four 

 varieties in this country, appear to form 

 the link between the fruit-eating and uon- 

 fruit-eating species of the red-headed family 

 From sipping the sap of the sugar-maple to 

 testing the flavor of a cherry, a service-berry 

 or a haw-apple, is a short and delightfully 

 natural step. How logical, too. for a bird, 

 when it has once acquired the fruit-eating 

 habit, to quit delving in the hard green 

 wood for a nectar so much inferior to that 

 which may be had readj' bottled in the 

 skins of apples, grapes and berries ! In 

 accordance with this rule, M. erythro- 

 cpplinl'its and Centurun mrolinuH, though 

 great tipplers, are too lazj^ or too wise to 

 bore the maples, preferring to sit on the 

 edge of a sugar-trough, furtively drinking 

 therefrom leisurely draughts of the sac- 

 chrine blood of the ready tapped trees. I 

 have seen them with their bills stained pur- 

 ple to the nostrils with the rich juice of the 

 blackberry, and they quarrel from morning 

 till night over the ripest June-apples and 

 reddest cherries, their noise making a Bed- 

 lam of the fairest country orchard. 



The woodpecker family is scattered wide- 

 ly in our county. In the West Canadiim 

 woods f>ne meets, besides a number of the 

 commoner species, Lewis's woodpecker, a 

 large, beautiful and rare l)ird. The Cali- 

 fornia sjieeies include the Nuttall. the 

 Harris, the Cape St. Lucas, the white-headed 

 and several other varieties, all showing 

 more or less kinship to the ivory-bill. 

 Lewis's woodpecker shows almost entirely 

 black, its plumage givsng forth a strong 

 greenish or bluish lustre. The red on itshead 

 is softened down to a tine rose-carmine. It 

 is a wild, wary bird, flying high, combining 

 in its habits the traits of both HylotomvH 

 pileaULH and fjampepliilus p>inc/pt/l>.t. 



In concluding this paper a general de- 



