41 2 
THE IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER. 
This splendid bird is armed with a tremendous beak, long, powerful, shaip, and white as 
ivory, ^ which can be used equally as an instrument for obtaining its food, or as a weapon for 
repelling the attacks of its enemies, and, in the latter point of view, is a truly formidable arm, 
as terrible to its enemies as the bayonet, to which it bears no little resemblance in general 
shape. 
Few birds are more useful than the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, which wages continual war 
upon the myriad insects which undermine the bark of forest-trees, and saves the forest giants 
from falling a prey to their diminutive adversaries. In one season several thousand acres of 
huge pine-trees, from two to three feet in diameter, and many of them measuring one hundred 
and fifty feet in height, were destroyed by the larva? of a little insect not bigger than a grain 
of rice. Besides this creature, there are large grubs and caterpillars that bore their way into/ 
the interior of trees, and are the pioneers of the destruction that afterwards follows. 
When the Ivory-billed Woodpecker has been hard at work upon a tree, he leaves ample 
traces of his progress in the heaps of bark and wood chips which surround the tree, and which 
look, according to Wilson, as if a dozen axe-men had been working at the trunk. Strips of 
bark seven or eight inches in length are often struck off by a single blow, and the body of the 
tree is covered with great excavations that seem more like the work of steel tools than of a 
bird’s beak. Yet these apparent damages are really useful to the tree, as the sound wood is 
allowed to remain in its place, performing its proper functions, while the decaying substances 
are scooped out in order that the bird may get at the grubs and beetles that make their home 
therein. 
As in the case of all Woodpeckers, the beak is also employed in excavating the holes 
in which the eggs are laid. The following account of the nesting of this bird is given by 
Audubon : — 
“ The Ivory-billed Woodpecker nestles earlier in spring than any other species of its tribe. 
I have observed it boring a hole for that purpose in the beginning of March. The hole is, 
I believe, always made in the trunk of a live tree, generally of an ash or a hagberry, and is at 
a great height. 
“ The birds pay great regard to the particular situation of the tree, and the inclination of 
its trunk, first because they prefer retirement, and again, because they are anxious to secure 
the aperture against the access of water during beating rains. To prevent such a calamity, the 
hole is generally dug immediately under the juncture of a large branch with the trunk. It is 
first bored horizontally for a few inches, then directly downwards, and not in a spiral manner, 
as some people have imagined. According to circumstances, this cavity is more or less deep, 
being sometimes not more than ten inches, whilst at other times it reaches nearly three feet 
downwards into the core of the tree. I have been led to think these differences result from the 
more or less necessity under which the female may be of depositing her eggs, and again have 
thought that the older the Woodpecker is, the deeper does it make its hole. The average 
diameter of the different nests which I have examined was about seven inches within, although 
the entrance, which is perfectly round, is only just large enough to admit the bird. 
‘ 4 Both birds work most assiduously at this excavation, one waiting outside to encourage 
the other whilst it is engaged in digging, and when the latter is fatigued, taking its place. 
I have approached trees whilst these Woodpeckers were thus busily employed in forming 
their nest, and by resting my head against the bark could easily distinguish every blow given 
by the bird. I observed that in two instances, when the Wooodpeckers saw me thus at the 
foot of the tree in which they were digging their nest, they abandoned it forever. For 
the first brood there are generally six eggs. They are deposited in a few chips at the bottom 
of the whole, and are of a pure white color. The young are seen creeping out of the hole 
about a fortnight before they venture to fly to any other tree. The second brood makes its 
appearance about the 15th of August.” 
The courage and determination of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is very great, and it will 
fight with its opponent in a most desperate manner. When wounded, it endeavors to reach 
the nearest tree, and to run up its trunk, and if intercepted will peck as fiercely at the hand 
of its pursuer as at the wood and bark, and is able to inflict severe injury with its sharp 
