RED-COCKADED WOODPECKER. 
255 
Louisiana, I once slightly wounded two males, which I put into my hat in 
order to carry them home. The first, on being brought to the ground, was 
easily secured, but the case was different with the other, for it at once 
hopped off toward the nearest tree, crying loudly all the while, and on 
reaching it ascended as if unhurt. However, I obtained it by accidentally 
knocking off the bark with a clod of earth. It defended itself courageously, 
and pecked at my fingers with so much vigour that I was obliged to let it 
drop several times out of my hand. Confined in my hat, they remained 
still and sullen, and when I looked at them they both hid their heads, as if 
ashamed of their situation. Whenever I chanced to fire my gun, it alarmed 
them, and they uttered a plaintive cry, differing from their usual note while 
at liberty. One of them died before I reached the house, probably through 
the great heat ; the other, however, was well, and I put it into a cage, every 
part of which it examined, until finding a spot by which it thought it might 
escape, it began to work there, and soon made the chips fly off. In a few 
minutes, it made its way out, and leaped upon the floor, uttering its common 
cluck , hopped to the wall, and ascended as if it had been on the bark of one 
of its favourite trees. The room being unfinished, the bricks were bare, 
and as it passed along, it peeped into the interstices, and seized the spiders 
and other insects which it found lurking in them. I kept this bird two 
days, but when I found that the poor thing could procure no food, I gave it 
its liberty, and was glad to find that its wounded wing was so far healed as 
to allow it to fly thirty or forty yards at a time, so that it had a good chance 
of being able to reach its favourite pines again, with the scent of which it 
was strongly imbued. 
When on a high tree, it looks as if entirely black. Generally, too, even • 
when seen close at hand, the red line over the eye is covered by the adjacent 
feathers; at least this was the case with the two individuals mentioned above. 
The one which died had its gizzard crammed with the heads of small ants 
and a few minute coleopterous insects. It is fond of the company of our 
small Woodpeckers, as well as of Sylvia pinus and Varus carolinensis. 
I have found this bird mated in January in the Floridas, and engaged in 
preparing a breeding place in February. The nest is not unfrequently bored 
in a decayed stump about thirty feet high, the wreck of a noble pine, 
destroyed by the irresistible fury of a hurricane. The eggs, which arc 
usually four, although I have found as many as six, are smooth and pure 
white. The young, like those of our other species, crawl out of their holes, 
and on the branches around wait for the food brought by their parents, until 
they are able to shift for themselves. 
In the winter months, I have seen several of these birds enter a hole at 
