280 PILEATED WOODPECKER. 
flying, he instaritly makes for the nearest tree, and strikes with great 
bitterness at the hand stretched out to seize him; and can rarely be 
reconciled to confinement. He is sometimes observed among the hills 
of Indian corn, and it is said by some that: he frequently feeds on it. 
Complaints of this kind are, however, not general; many farmers 
doubting the fact, and conceiving that at these times he is in search 
of insects which lie concealed in the husk. I will not be pad that 
they never occasionally taste maize; yet I have opened and examined 
great, numbers of these birds, killed in various parts of the United 
States, from Lake Ontario to the Alatamaha River, but never found a 
grain of Indian corn in their stomachs. 
The Pileated Woodpecker is not migratery, but braves the extremes 
of both 'the arctic and torrid regions. Neither is he gregarious, for it: 
is rare to see more than one or two, or at the most three, in company. 
Formerly they were numerous in the neighborhood of Philadelphia; 
but gradually, as the old timber fell, and the country became better 
cleared, they retreated to the forest. At present few of those birds 
are to be found within ten or fifteen miles of the city. — ae 
Their nest is built, or rather the eggs are deposited, in the hole of a 
tree, dug out by themselves, no oth materials being used but the soft 
chips of rotten wood. The femal® lays six large eggs, of a snowy ° 
whiteness; and, it is said, they generally raise two broods in the same 
season. 
‘This species is eighteen inches long, and twenty-eight in extent; the 
general color is a dusky brownish black; thé head is ornamented with a 
conical cap of bright scarlet; two scarlet mustaches proceed from the 
lower mandible; the chin is white; the nostrils are covered with 
brownish white, hair-like feathers, and this stripe of white passes from 
thence down the side of the neck to the sides, spreading under the 
wings ;the upper half of the wings is white, but concealed by the 
black-coverts; the.lower extremities of the wings are black, so that 
the white on the wing is not seen but when the bird is flying, at which 
time it is very prominent ;. the tail is tapering, the feathers being very 
convex above, and strong; the legs are of a leaden gray color, very 
short, scarcely half an inch; th ves very long; claws, strong and - 
semicircular, and of a pale bli the bill is fluted, sharply ridged, 
very broad at the base, bluish!) <k above, below and at the point blu- 
ish white; the eye is of ab xht golden color, the pupil black; the 
tongue, like those of its tr’ is worm-shaped, except near the tip, 
where for one eighth of ar :nch. it is horny, pointed, and beset with 
barbs, oe : : ‘ 
The female has the forehead, and nearly to the crown, of a light 
brown color, and the mustaches are dusky, instead of red. In both, a 
fine line of white separates the red crest from the dusky line that passes 
over the eye. ad 
