10 
WOODPECKERS. 
success have been granted to it. Its cries, tliougli 
melancholy to us, are so from association with the 
dark forests and the stillness which surround their 
haunts, but perhaps at the time when we judge are 
expressive of the greatest enjoyment, jln answer of 
kindness in reply to a mate, the calling together of 
the newly-fledged brood, or exultation over the dis- 
covery of some favourite food, are what are set down 
as painful and discontented.* 
One of the most noble birds of the family is the 
Ivory-billed AYoodpecker {Picus principalis). This ma- 
jestic and formidable species, says AYilson, in strength 
and magnitude, stands at the head of the whole class 
(family) of Woodpeckers hitherto discovered. He may 
be called the king or chief of his tribe ; and nature 
seems to have designed him a distinguished character- 
istic in the superb carmine crest and bill of polished 
ivory with which she has ornamented him. His eye 
is brilliant and daring, and his whole frame so ad- 
mirably adapted for his mode of life and method of 
procuring subsistence, as to impress on the mind of 
the examiner the most reverential ideas of the Creator. 
His manners have also a dignity in them superior to 
the common herd of Woodpeckers. Trees, shrubberies, 
orchards, rails, fence-posts, and old prostrate logs are 
alike interesting to these, in their humble and indefa- 
tigable search for prey ; but the royal hunter now 
before us scorns the humility of such situations, and 
seeks the most towering trees of the forest, seeming 
particularly attached to those prodigious cypress 
swamps, whose crowded giant trees stretch their bare 
^ sir W. Jardine. 
