et 
280 PILEATED WOODPECKER. 
flying, he instantly 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 sometimés 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 positive that 
they never occasionally taste maize; yct 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-stoniachs. ; 
The Pileated Woodpecker is not migratory, 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. 
Their nest is built, or rather the eggs are deposited, in the hole of a 
tree, dug out by themselves, no other materials being used but the soft 
chips of rotten wood. The female lays gix 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; the 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; the toes very long; claws, strong and 
semicircular, and of a pale blue; the bill is fluted, sharply ridged, 
very broad at the base, bluish black above, below and at the point blu- 
ish white; the eye is of a bright golden color, the pupil black; the 
tongue, like those of its tribe, is worm-shaped, except near the tip, 
where for one eighth of an inch it is horny, pointed, and beset with 
barbs. ; : 
‘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. 
