27 



PILEATED WOODPECKER. 

 PICUS PILEATUS. 

 [Plate XXIX.— Fig. 1.] 



Picus niger, crista rubra, Lath. Ind, Orn. I, p. 225. 4. — Picus pileatus^ Linn. Syst. I,/?. 

 173. 3. — Gmel. Syst. I, p. 425. — Picus Firginianus pileatusy Briss. IV,/?. 29. 10.-— Id. 

 8vo, II, p. 50. — Pic noir a huppe rouge. Buff. VII, p. 48. — Pic noir huppe de la Loui- 

 siane, PI. enl. 718. — Larger crested Woodpecker, Catesb. Car. I, 6. 17. — Pileated Wood- 

 pecker, Arct. Zool. II, No. 157.— Lath. Syn. II, p. 554. 3.— Sup. p. 105.— Bar- 

 tram,/?. 289. — Peale's Museum, No. 1886. 



THIS American species is the second in size among his tribe, 

 and may be styled the Great Northern Chief of the Woodpeckers, 

 tho, in fact, his range extends over the whole of the United States 

 from the interior of Canada to the gulf of Mexico. He is very nu- 

 merous in the Gennesee country, and in all the tracts of high-tim- 

 bered forests, particularly in the neighbourhood of our large rivers, 

 where he is noted for making a loud and almost incessant cackling 

 before wet weather; flying at such times in a restless uneasy man- 

 ner from tree to tree, making the woods echo to his outcry. In 

 Pennsylvania and the northern states he is called the Black Wood- 

 cock; in the southern states, the Log-cock. Almost every old 

 trunk in the forest where he resides bears the marks of his chizel. 

 Wherever he perceives a tree beginning to decay, he examines it 

 round and round with great skill and dexterity, strips off the bark 

 in sheets of five or six feet in length, to get at the hidden cause of 

 the disease, and labors with a gaiety and activity really surprizing. 

 I have seen him separate the greatest part of the bark from a large 

 dead pine tree, for twenty or thirty feet, in less than a quarter of 

 an hour. Whether engaged in flying from tree to tree, in digging. 



