PILEATED WOODPECKER. 279 
others. The tongue was worm-shaped, and for half an inch at the tip 
as hard as horn, fiat, pomted, of the same white color as the bill, and 
thickly barbed on each side.* ! 
——~-——_ 
‘ PILEATED WOODPECKER.—PICUS PILEATUS.—Fia 132. 
Picus niger, crista rubra, Lath. Ind. Orn. i. p. 225, 4. — Picus pileatus, Linn. Syst. 
i. p. 173, 3.— Gmel. Syst. i. p. 425.—Picus Virginianus pileatus, Briss. iv. p. 
29, 10. — Id. 8vo. ii. p. 50.— Pic noir 4 huppé rouge, Buff. vii. p. 48.— Pie noir 
huppé de la Louisiana, Pl. enl. 718. — Larger Crested Woodpecker, Catesh. Car. 
i. O17, — Pileated Wood ecker, Arct. Zool. ii. No. 157.— Lath. Syn. ii. p. 554, 
3. — Id. Supp. p. 105. — Bartram, p. 289.— Peale’s Museum, No. 1886. 
PICUS PILEATUS, — Linxexvs.t 
Picus ileatus Bonap. Synop. p. 44.— Wagl. Syst. ‘Av. No. 2. — Picus (dryoto- 
ici ea mus) pileatas, Ngth Zool. ii. p. 304. 
Tis American species is the second in size among his tribe, and 
may be styled the great northern chief of the Woodpeckers, though, 
in fact, his range extends over the whole of the United States from 
the interior of Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. He is very numerous 
-in the Genesee country, and in all the tracts of high-timbered forests, 
particularly in the neighborhood of our large rivers, where he is noted 
for making a loud and almost incessant cackling before wet weather, 
flying at such times in a restless, uneasy manner from tree to tree, 
making the woods echo to his outery. In Pennsylvania and the North- 
ern States, he is called the Black Woodcock; in the Southern States, 
.the Logcock. Alrnost every old trunk in the forest where he resides 
bears the marks of his chisel. Wherever he perceives a tree beginning 
to decay, he examines it round and round with great skill and dexterity, 
strips off the bark in sheets of ‘five or six feet in length, to get at the 
hidden cause of the disease, and labors with a gayety and activity 
really surprising. I have seen him separate the greatest part of the 
bark from a large, dead pine tree, for twenty or thirty feet, in less than 
a quarter of an hour. Whether engaged in flying from tree to tree, 
in digging, climbing, or barking, he-seems.perpetually in a hurry. He 
is extremely hard to kill, clinging close to the tree even after he has 
received his mortal wound; nor yielding up his hold but with his ex- 
piring breath. If slightly wounded in the wing, and dropped while 
* Wilson seems to have been in some uncertainty regarding the nidification of 
this species, and probably never saw the nest. The account of Mr. Audubon will 
fill up what is here wanting. ~Ep. 
+ As we remarked in our last note, Mr. Swainson, according to the views he en- 
tertains, has divided the large family Piciane: into five great divisions, and the 
different forms in these again into groups of lesser value. For the type of one of 
them, he has chosen the Picus pileatus, under the title of Dryotomus, differing from 
Picus in the exterior outer toc being shorter than the anterior external one, exactly 
the reverse of the proportions of Picus.— Ep. 
