278 IVORY-L LLED WOODPECKER. 
The food of this bird ccnsists, 1 believe, entirely of insects and 
their larve.* The Pileated Woodpecker is suspected of sometimes 
tasting the Indian corn; the Ivory-billed never. His common note, 
repeated every three or four,seconds, very much resembles the tone 
of a trumpet, or the high note of a clarionet, and can plainly be dis- 
tinguished at the distance of more than half a mile; seeming to be 
immediately at hand, though perhaps more than one hundred yards off. 
This it utters while mounting along the trunk or digging into it. At 
these times it has'a stately and novel appearance; and the note in- 
stantly attracts the notice of a stranger. Along the borders of the 
Savannah River, between Savannah and Augusta, I found them very 
frequently ; but my horse no sooner heard their trumpet-like note, than, 
remembering his former alarm, he became almost ungovernable. 
The Ivory-billed Woodpecker is twenty inches long, and thirty 
inches in extent; the general color is black, with a considerable gloss 
of green when exposed to a good light; iris of the eye, vivid yellow; 
nostrils, covered with recumbent white hairs; fore part of the head, 
black; rest of the crest, of a most splendid red, spotted at the bottom 
with white, which is only seen when the crest is erected, as represented 
in Fig. 135; this long red plumage being ash-colored at its base, 
above that white, and ending in brilliant red; a stripe of white pro- 
ceeds from a point, about half an inch below each eye, passes down 
each side of the neck, and along the back, where they are about an 
inch apart, nearly to the rump; the first five primaries are wholly 
black; on the next five the white spreads from the tip, higher and 
higher, to the secondaries, which are wholly white from their coverts 
downward! These markings, when the wings are shut, make the bird 
appear as if his back were white; hence he has been called by some 
of our naturalists the large White-backed Woodpecker. The neck 
is long; the beak an inch broad at the base, of the color and consis- 
tence of ivory, prodigiously strong and elegantly fluted. The tail is 
black, tapering from the two exterior feathers, which are three inches 
shorter than the middle ones, and each feather has the singularity of 
being greatly concave below; the wing is lined with yellowish white ; 
the legs are about an inch and a quarter long, the exterior toe about 
the same length, the claws exactly semicircular and remarkably pow- 
erful, —the whole of a light blue or lead color. The female is about 
half an inch shorter, the bill rather less, and the whole plumage of the 
head black, glossed with green; in the other parts of the plumage, she 
exactly resembles the male. In the stomachs of three which I opened, 
I found large quantities of a species of worm called borers, two or 
three inches long, of a dirty cream color, with a black head; the 
stomach was an oblong pouch, not muscular, like the gizzards of some 
* Mr. Audubon says, that though the greater part of their food consists of insects 
and their larvee, no sooner are the grapes of our forests ripe, than they are eaten 
with the greatest avidity. I have seen this bird hang by its claws to the vines, in 
the position so often assumed by the Titmouse, and, reaching down, help itself to 
a bunch of grapes. Persimmons are also sought by them, as soon as the fruit be- 
comes quite mellow, and hagberries. — Ep. 3 
