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PILEATED WOODPECKER 



climbing or barking, he seems perpetually in a hurry. He is ex- 

 tremely hard to kill, clinging close to the tree even after he has 

 received his mortal wound ; nor yielding up his hold but with his 

 expiring breath. If slightly wounded in the wing, and dropt while 

 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 sometimes observed 

 among the hills of Indian corn, and it is said by some that he fre- 

 quently 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; yet I have opened and examined great numbers of these 

 birds, killed in various parts of the United States, from lake Onta- 

 rio to the Alatamaha river, but never found a grain of Indian corn 

 in their stomachs. 



The Plicated Woodpecker is not migratory, but braves the 

 extremes of both the arctic and torrid regions. Neither is he gre- 

 garious, for it is rare to see more than one or two, or at the most 

 three in company. Formerly they were numerous in the neigh- 

 bourhood 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 six large 

 eggs of a snowy whiteness ; and, it is said, they generally raise two 

 brood in the same season. 



This species is eighteen inches long, and twenty-eight in ex- 

 tent; the general color is a dusky brownish black; the head is or- 

 namented with a conical cap of bright scarlet; two scarlet mus- 

 taches proceed from the lower mandible; the chin is white; the 



