AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 23 



THE LOGCOCKS. 



By E. F. MOSBY. 



Last summer I was surprised by seeing a large bird with a scarlet 

 crest running along an old log; another followed and I quickly saw 

 that they were Logcocks, the largest woodpeckers of the east, very 

 black and with white and black stripes along the head and a handsome 

 scarlet crest. 



There were some large pokeberry bushes loaded with dark crimson 

 berries near the log and the birds climbed into them and ate eagerly. 

 I saw one of the Woodpeckers swing, head and back downwards, like 

 a Chickadee while he held on with his claw and gathered the fruit with 

 his bill, from a branch that spread outward. It was very odd to see 

 such a large heavy bird in the attitude of our tiny Chickadees and 

 Kinglets. 



They did not seem shy and I saw and heard them frequently. They 

 came near the house and were in the outside yard with its great oaks 

 and chestnut trees. Sometimes my attention was called to them by 

 the large chips or layers of wood which they chiseled off the tree with 

 their strong beaks. They always seemed to strike the tree sideways 

 instead of boring holes from the front like the Sapsucker and Downy 

 Woodpecker. 



There were usually two together and they uttered low, curious two 

 syllabled calls to each other. I noticed the two on an old fallen log, 

 to which one was clinging in the usual sidewise way and throwing off 

 bits of wood now and then. 



Some of their notes are very near like the Flickers only louder; 

 another common sound was like a loud cackling. They often made 

 this when disturbed and about to rise in flight. A note that I frequent- 

 ly heard when they were flying overhead sounded to my ears like 

 "Quick, Quick." 



A BIRD TRAGEDY. 



Spring time in the county! Why those poets of the old Smoky-city 

 class room were not so flightily unreal after all. Spring is a wondrous 

 glorious panorama; and we who, many years ago, more than half 

 believed in the wonderful Genius of Alladins Lamp, stand today in awe 

 before the wondrous transformation wrought by an unseen hand. 

 Yon trees but yesterday bleak, black, lifeless, laugh now in leaves of 

 tenderest green or in blossoms pink or white; the air is redolent of 

 blossom breath and vocal with the song of birds. 



