228 THE PILEATED WOODPECKER. 



their eggs, to see if they would lay a second time. They waited a few days 

 as if undecided, when on a sudden I heard the female at work again in the 

 tree; she once more deepened the hole, made it broader at bottom, and 

 recommenced laying. This time she laid five eggs. I suffered her to bring 

 out her young, both sexes alternately incubating, each visiting the other at 

 intervals, peeping into the hole to see that all was right and well there, and 

 flying off afterwards in search of food. 



When the young were sufficiently grown to be taken out with safety, 

 which I ascertained by seeing them occasionally peeping out of the hole, I 

 carried them home, to judge of their habits in confinement, and attempted 

 to raise them. I found it exceedingly difficult to entice them to open their 

 bill in order to feed them. They were sullen and cross, nay, three died in 

 a few days; but the others, having been fed on grasshoppers forcibly intro- 

 duced into their mouths, were raised. In a short time they began picking 

 up the grasshoppers thrown into their cage, and were fully fed with corn- 

 meal, which they preferred eating dry. Their whole employment consisted 

 in attempting to escape from their prison, regularly demolishing one every 

 two days, although made of pine boards of tolerable thickness. I at last had 

 one constructed with oak boards at the back and sides, and rails of the same 

 in front. This was too much for them, and their only comfort was in pass- 

 ing and holding their bills through the hard bars. In the morning after 

 receiving water, which they drank freely, they invariably upset the cup or 

 saucer, and although this was large and flattish, they regularly turned it quite 

 over. After this they attacked the trough which contained their food, and 

 soon broke it to pieces, and when perchance I happened to approach them 

 with my hand, they made passes at it with their powerful bills with great 

 force. I kept them in this manner until winter. They were at all times 

 uncleanly and unsociable birds. On opening the door of my study one 

 morning, one of them dashed off by me, alighted on an apple-tree near the 

 house, climbed some distance, and kept watching me from one side and then 

 the other, as if to ask what my intentions were. I walked into my study: — 

 the other was hammering at my books. They had broken one of the bars 

 of the cage, and must have been at liberty for some hours, judging by the 

 mischief they had done. Tired of my pets, I opened the door, and this last 

 one hearing the voice of his brother, flew towards him and alighted on the 

 same tree. They remained about half an hour, as if consulting each other, 

 after which, taking to their wings together, they flew off in a southern 

 direction, and with much more ease than could have been expected from 

 birds so long kept in captivity. The ground was covered with snow, and I 

 never more saw them. No birds of this species ever bred since in the hole 



