LETTEES FEOM ALABAMA. 
91 
vultures, I was surprised to meet with very few 
birds indeed. I had supposed that at such an hour 
I should meet with very many ; but perhaps I was 
wrong in going into the woods, instead of keeping 
near the edges. W e by-and-by discovered, however, 
what I thought well worth my trouble, a pair of 
those splendid birds, the Ivory-billed Woodpeckers 
{Picibs principaUs), They were engaged in rapping 
some tall dead pines, in a dense part of the forest, 
which rang with their loud notes. These were not 
at all like the loud laugh of the Pileated (P.pileatus)^ 
nor the cackle of the smaller species, but a single- 
cry frequently repeated, like the clang of a trumpet. 
As it hung on the perpendicular trunk in full view, 
digging away with great force and effect, I thought 
this a very magnificent bird. It is the largest of all 
the tribe, being twenty inches in length, of a glossy 
black, broadly marked with pure white. The neck 
is long and slender, the head is crowned with a 
tall conical crest of the most splendid crimson, the 
eye is bright yellow; but the beak is his chief 
distinction. This is four inches in length, and a 
full inch in diameter at the base ; it tapers to a 
sharp point, which is wedge-shaped. You would 
suppose it made of the finest ivory, highly polished, 
of great hardness, and beautifully grooved or fluted 
through its whole length. This is the male ; the 
female exactly resembles it, except that her crest is 
of the same glossy black as the body.’ We succeeded 
in shooting both, which I skinned and dissected. 
Wilson says, The food of this bird consists, 
I believe, entirely of insects and their larvae : ” 
but in this he is wrong. In the stomach of one 
of these, indeed, I found the remains of a large 
Gerumbyx^ but mingled with the stones of several 
