PILEATED WOODPECKER. 
189 
Wi, 
he perceives a tree beginning: to decay, he 
it round and round with great skill and dex- 
I y. strips oflf the hark in sheets of live or six feet 
n^l^gth, to get at the hidden cause of the disease, 
1 ^ '“‘Wurs wfth a gaiety and activity really surprising, 
t “'‘Ve seen him separate the greatest part of the haidc 
'H I “ dead pine tree, for tu'enty or thirty feet, 
in than a ipiarter of an hour. Whether engaged 
from tree to tree, in digging, climhing, or 
W'"?’ I'o seems perpetually in a hurrv". lie is ex- 
hard to kill, clinging close to the tree even 
K 'v.he has received his mortal wound ; nor yielding 
hold hut with his expiring breath. It slightly 
ill,, **ded in the wing, and dropt while nying', he 
"lly makes for the nearest tree, and strikes with 
C' ^‘tteruess at the hand stretched out to seize him ; 
C rarely he reconciled to couhneinent. lie is 
observed among the hiUs of Indian corn, 
t ’ 't is said by some that he frequently feeds on it. 
iC*‘’''“'ts of this kind are, liowever, not general; 
‘V *^^*''“'‘rs doubting the fact, and conceiving that at 
tirvii.g lie is in search of insects whicli lie con- 
in the husk. I will not he positive that they 
Ik':'’. O ccasionally taste maize; yet 1 have opened and 
0'‘*«d great numbers of these birds, killed in various 
Of the United States, from Lake Ontai-io to the 
Oiaha river, hut never found a grain of Indian 
yi Oi their stoniaidis. 
I’ileated woodpecker is not migratory, but braves 
Vaf’^l'-emes of both the arctic and torrid regions. 
'O' is he gregarious, for it is rare to see more than 
•tc,,'’!' two, or at the most three, in company^ For- 
H F ti'fiV wore mimerous in the iieiglihourhood of 
tL ■'"lolphia ; but gradually, as tlic old timber fell, and 
tk '.'‘outry hocaine better cleared, they retreated to 
’’''Uii At present few of those birds arc to he 
"’ithin ten or lifteeii miles of the city. 
>ti,}Oeir imst is built, or rather the eggs are deposited, 
hole of a tree, dug out by themselves, no other 
