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THE PILEATED WOODPECKER. 



Pic us pileatus, Linn. 

 PLATE CXI. Male, Female, and Young Males. 



It would be difficult for me to say in what part of our extensive coun- 

 try I have not met with this hardy inhabitant of the forest. Even now, 

 when several species of our birds are becoming rare, destroyed as they 

 are, either to gratify the palate of the epicure, or to adorn the cabinet of 

 the naturalist, the Pileated Woodpecker is every where to be found in the 

 wild woods, although scarce and shy in the peopled districts. 



Wherever it occurs it is a permanent resident, and, like its relative the 

 Ivory-billed Woodpecker, it remains pretty constantly in the place which 

 it has chosen after leaving its parents. It is at all times a shy bird, so 

 that one can seldom approach it, unless under cover of a tree, or when he 

 happens accidentally to surprise it whUe engaged in its daily avocations. 

 When seen in a large field newly brought into tillage, and yet covered 

 with girdled trees, it removes from one to another, cackling out its laugh- 

 ter-like notes, as if it found delight in leading you a wild-goose chase in 

 pursuit of it. When followed it always alights on the tallest branches or 

 trunks of trees, removes to the side farthest off, from which it every mo- 

 ment peeps, as it watches your progress in silence ; and so well does it seem 

 to know the distance at which a shot can reach it, that it seldom permits 

 so near an approach. Often when you think the next step will take you 

 near enough to fire with certainty, the wary bird flies off before you can 

 reach it Even in the wildest parts of Eastern Florida, where I have at 

 times followed it, to assure myself that the birds I saw were of the same 

 species as that found in our distant Atlantic States, its vigilance was not in 

 the least abated. For miles have I chased it from one cabbage-tree to 

 another, without ever getting within shooting distance, until at last I was 

 forced to resort to stratagem, and seeming to abandon the chase, took a 

 circuitous route, concealed myself in its course, and waited until it came 

 up, when, it being now on the side of the trees next to me, I had no dif- 

 ficulty in bringing it down. I shall never forget, that, while in the Great 

 Pine Forest of Pennsylvania, I spent several days in the woods endeavour- 



