160 BIRDS OF ALABAMA 



from Dallas County, stated that neither this species nor the 

 pileated woodpecker can be considered rare, but the pileated 

 is much the more common of the two.f 



In 1865 an ivory-bill was taken on the west side of the 

 Tombigbee River, in Marengo County,t and in 1866, Dr. Avery 

 shot a specimen in a cypress slough near the Warrior River, 

 10 miles west of Greensboro,** the only instance known to 

 him of its occurrence in that vicinity. Hasbrouck, in his 

 paper on this species, says: 



At Crump Springs, on the Buttahatchie, in the spring of 

 1886, Mr. G. V. Young observed it nesting in a dead pine, some 

 seventy feet from the ground, and in the fall of 1889 he identi- 

 fied one in Wilcox County while on a deer hunt. It is rare 

 and seldom seen [in Alabama], but confined to the lower swamp 

 country.*! 

 C. W. Howe, a trapper who has spent many years in the 

 wilder parts of Alabama, tells me that he killed one of these 

 birds about 1907 in the Conecuh swamps north of Troy, the 

 only one he ever saw in the State. 



General habits. — The ivory-bill is the largest and wildest of 

 its tribe in the United States. It avoids settled and cultivated 

 districts and seeks the deepest v/ooded swamps for its abode. 

 It is said to be rather noisy and is easily recognized either by 

 its peculiar nasal voice or by its striking coloration and white 

 bill. Audubon describes its notes as follows : 



"It never utters any sound whilst on wing, unless during the 

 love season; but at all other times, no sooner has this bird 

 alighted than its remarkable voice is heard, at almost every 

 leap which it makes, whilst ascending against the upper parts 

 of the trunk of a tree, or its highest branches. Its notes are 

 clear, loud, and yet rather plaintive. They are heard- at a con- 

 siderable distance, perhaps half a mile, and resemble the false 

 high note of a clarionet. They are usually repeated three 

 times in succession, and may be represented by the mono- 

 syllable pait, pait, pait."* 



Food habits. — From the little known of the food habits of 

 this vanishing species, it is believed to be, like most of its con- 



tGosse, P. H., Letters from Alabama, p. 93, 1859. 

 JHasbrouck, E. M., The Auk, vol. 8, pp. 181, 185, 1891. 

 **Avery, Amer. Field, vol. 84, p. 608, 1890. 

 *tHasbrouck, loo. cit., p. 181, 1891. 

 •Audubon. J. J., Ornith. Biog., vol. 1, p. 343, 1831. 



