Pileated Woodpecker 
375 
the Pileated Woodpecker is not always the shy bird we sometimes think 
it to be. One frequently may approach in the open woods to within a 
few rods of a feeding bird, and often when startled its flight may be of 
short duration. In some of the southern towns where heavy forests are 
adjacent this species will sometimes come into the groves about dwell- 
ings. 
While a student at the University of North Carolina, I remember 
seeing three on the University campus at one time. Three pairs of the 
birds constantly inhabited the college woods, a tract of perhaps one 
hundred acres, which adjoined the campus. Although the nests are often 
built a considerable distance from the ground, I have found them in 
Guilford County, North Carolina, at a height not greater than twelve 
feet, but this was probably exceptional. 
Mr. Arthur T. Wayne, of Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, who has 
spent much time studying the habits of this bird, in his Birds of South 
Carolina, says: 
‘This species uses a certain hole, which it excavates in a living 
black gum or a living sweet gum tree, in which to sleep, and it is so 
attached to it that I have known one of these birds to resort for years 
to the same hole to spend the night. This sleeping-hole is almost always 
excavated in a tree which is hollow from the base to within a foot of 
the first limb. Sometimes two holes are bored in the same tree, and if 
an attempt is made to catch the bird, it can escape by going through 
either of the holes or else make its exit at the base. 
“If the season is a forward one the birds mate early in February, 
and towards the latter part of the month they begin to excavate their 
hole, which requires exactly a month for comple- 
tion. During the month of March, 1904, I made Place 
observations on a pair which excavated their hole ^ 
in a dead pine. On March 21, the opening was commenced by the 
female, who drilled a small hole, and by degrees enlarged it to the size 
of a silver dollar. The male assisted in the excavation, but the female 
did by far the larger part of the work. The size of the aperture was 
not increased until necessary to admit the shoulders of the bird. I visited 
these birds every day in order to note the progress of their work, and, 
being so accustomed to seeing me, they were utterly fearless and I could, 
at any time, approach within twenty feet without hindering the work, 
although the hole was only about thirty feet from the ground. This 
hole was completed on April 21, and the first egg was laid the following 
morning. As incubation commences upon the advent of the first egg, 
and as the eggs are not laid consecutively, I did not again examine the 
contents of the nest until April 26, when three eggs were found. Upon 
investigating the cavity on April 28, and finding but three eggs, I con- 
cluded that the set was complete. In this case the excavation was made 
under a dead limb, and was about eighteen inches deep, being hollowed 
out more on one side than the other. This Woodpecker is so attached 
to the tree in which it has first made its nest that it continues to cling 
