10 IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER. 



is brilliant and daring; and his whole frame so admirably adapted 

 for his mode of life, and method of procuring subsistence, as 

 to impress on the mind of the examiner the most reverential 



hard and laborious, dragged on in the same unvaried tract for one pur- 

 pose, — the supply of food. It has been painted in vivid and imaginary 

 colouring, and its existence has been described to be painful and bur- 

 densome iu the extreme ; its cries have been converted into complaints, 

 and its search for food into exertions of no use. We cannot agree to 

 this. The cry of the woodpecker is wild, and no doubt the incessant 

 hewing of holes without an adequate object would be sufficiently miser- 

 able. These, however, are the pleasures of the bird. The knowledge 

 to search after food is implanted in it, and organs most admirably formed 

 to prevent exhaustion, and ensure success, have been granted to it. Its 

 cries, though melancholy to us, are so from association with the dark 

 forests, and the stillness which surrounds their haunts, but perhaps, at 

 the time when we judge, are expressive of the greatest enjoyment. An 

 answer of kindness in reply to a mate, the calling together of the newly 

 fledged brood, or exultation over the discovery of some favourite hoard 

 of food, are what are set down as painful and discontented. 



Mr Audubon's remarks on this splendid species, " The king of the 

 woodpeckers," I have transcribed at some length, as indicating the parti- 

 cular manner of the typical family of this great group. 



"The ivory-billed woodpecker confines its rambles to a comparatively 

 very small portion of the United States, it never having been observed 

 in the middle states within the memory of any person now living there. 

 In fact, in no portion of these districts does the nature of the woods ap- 

 pear suitable to its remarkable habits. 



" Descending the Ohio, we meet with this splendid bird for the first 

 time near the confluence of that beautiful river and the Mississippi ; after 

 which, following the windings of the latter, either downwards toward 

 the sea, or upwards in the direction of the Missouri, we frequently ob- 

 serve it. On the Atlantic coast, North Carolina may be taken as the 

 limit of its distribution, although now and then an individual of the 

 species may be accidentally seen in Maryland. To the westward of the 

 Mississippi, it is found in all the dense forests bordering the streams which 

 empty their waters into that majestic river, from the very declivities of 

 the Rocky Mountains. The lower parts of the Carolinas, Georgia, Ala- 

 bama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, are, however, the most favourite resorts 

 of this bird, and in those states it constantly resides, breeds, and passes 

 a life of peaceful enjoyment, finding a profusion of food in all the deep, 

 dark, and gloomy swamps dispersed throughout them. 



" The flight of this bird is graceful in the extreme, although seldom 

 prolonged to more than a few hundred yards at a time, unless when it 



