228 
THE PILEATED WOODPECKER. 
their eggs, to see if they would lay a second time. They waited a few days 
as if undecided, when on a sudden I heard the female at work again in the 
tree ; she once more deepened the hole, made it broader at bottom, and 
recommenced laying. This time she laid five eggs. I suffered her to bring 
out her young, both sexes alternately incubating, each visiting the other at 
intervals, peeping into the hole to see that all was right and well there, and 
flying.off afterwards in search of food. 
When the young were sufficiently grown to be taken out with safety, 
which I ascertained by seeing them occasionally peeping out of the hole, I 
carried them home, to judge of their habits in confinement, and attempted 
to raise them. I found it exceedingly difficult to entice them to open their 
bill in order to feed them. They were sullen and cross, nay, three died in 
a few days, but the others, having been fed on grasshoppers forcibly intro- 
duced into their mouths, were raised. In a short time they began picking 
up the grasshoppers thrown into their cage, and were fully fed with corn- 
meal, which they preferred eating dry. Their whole employment consisted 
in attempting to escape from their prison, regularly demolishing one every 
two days, although made of pine boards of tolerable thickness. I at last had 
one constructed with oak boards at the back and sides, and rails of the same 
in front. This was too much for them, and their only comfort was in pass- 
ing and holding their bills through the hard bars. In the morning after 
receiving water, which they drank freely, they invariably upset the cup or 
saucer, and although this was large and flattish, they regularly turned it quite 
over. After this they attacked the trough which contained their food, and 
soon broke it to pieces, and when perchance I happened to approach them 
with my hand, they made passes at it with their powerfull bills with great 
force. I kept them in this manner until winter. They were at all times 
uncleanly and unsociable birds. On opening the door of my study one 
morning, one of them dashed off by me, alighted on an apple-tree near the 
house, climbed some distance, and kept watching me from one side and then 
the other, as if to ask what my intentions w r ere. I walked into my study : — 
the other was hammering at my books. They had broken one of the bars 
of the cage, and must have been at liberty for some hours, judging by the 
mischief they had done. Tired of my pets, I opened the door, and this last 
one hearing the voice of his brother, flew towards him and alighted on the 
same tree. They remained about half an hour, as if consulting each other, 
after which, taking to their wings together, they flew off in a southern 
direction, and with much more ease than could have been expected from 
birds so long kept in captivity. The ground was covered with snow, and I 
never more saw them. No birds of this species ever bred since in the hole 
