AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 
GENUS XXII. PICUS. WOODPECKER. 
SPECIES 1. PICUS PRINCIPJiLIS. 
IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER. 
[Plate XXIX.— Fig. 1.] 
Picus principalis, Linn. Syst. i, p, ITS, 2. — Gmel. Syst.i, p. 425. 
— Picus niger Carolinensis cristatus, Buiss. iv, p. 26, 9. — Pic 
noir d bee blanc, Buff, vii, p. 46. — PL Enl. 690. — King of the 
Woodpeckers, Kalm, vol. ii, p. 85. — White-billed Woodpecker, 
Catesb. Car. i, 16. — Arct. ZooL ii, JV*o. 156. — Lath. Syn. ii, p. 
553. — Bartram, p. 289. — Peale’s Museum, JSTo. 1884. 
This majestic and formidable species, in strength and mag- 
nitude, stands at the head of the whole class of Woodpeckers 
hitherto discovered. He may be called the king or chief of his 
tribe; and Nature seems to have designed him a distinguished 
characteristic, 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 admirably 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 W oodpeckers. Trees, shrubbery, orchards, 
rails, fence-posts, and old prostrate logs, are alike interesting to 
those, in their humble and indefatigable 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 
VOL. II. B 
