HYLOTOMUS PILEATUS : PILEATED WOODPECKER. 69 



Family PICID^: Woodpeckers. 



PILEATED WOODPECKER. 



HyLOTOMUS PILEATUS (L.) Bd. 



Chars. General color black ; head, neck and wings variegated with 

 white or pale yellowish ; bill dark horn color. Male, with a 

 scarlet crest, and scarlet cheek-patches. Female, with crest only 

 half scarlet, and no cheek-patches. Length, from 15.00 to 

 19.00 ; extent, about 28.00 ; wing, 8.50-9.50 ; tail, 6.00-7.00. 



Another of the many chapters for which the non- 

 oscine and non-passerine land birds of New England fur- 

 nish us occasion opens with the largest and finest rep- 

 resentative of the Woodpecker family, many members of 

 which will be seen to enter into the composition of our 

 feathered fauna. The Pileated Woodpecker, or Logcock, 

 or Black Woodcock, as the bird is called sometimes, is a 

 species of wide and general distribution in North America ; 

 but a wild and solitary bird, delighting in the recesses of 

 forests deepest and hoarest with age. It is one which 

 retreats instinctively at the crack of the axe and the 

 shriek of steam, and is therefore almost exterminated in 

 the cleared and settled portions of New England. Some 

 years hereafter, the faithful compiler of the records will 

 present interesting items of the occurrence of this " rare 

 species " here and there ; but for the present it may be 

 spoken of in more general terms, as all of the "forest 

 primeval" still harbors the great, black, scarlet-crested 

 woodman, chips of whose powerful chiselling are still 

 scattered at the feet of many a decrepit monarch. In 



