138 
PIOUS PILEATUS. 
rior feathers, which are three inches shorter than the 
middle ones, and each feather has the singularity of 
being greatly concave below ; the w ing is lined w ith 
yellowish white ; the legs are about an inch and a 
quarter long, the exterior toe about the same length, the 
daws exactly semicircular and remarkably powerful, 
the whole of a light blue or lead colour. The female 
is about half an inch shorter, the bill rather less, and 
the whole plumage of the head black, glossed wdth 
green ; in the other parts of the plumage, she exactly 
resembles the male. In the stomachs of three wdiich I 
opened, I found large quantities of a species of w T orm 
called borers, two or three inches long, of a dirty cream 
colour, with a black head ; the stomach was an oblong 
pouch, not muscular like the gizzards of some others. 
The tongue was worm-shaped, and for half an inch at 
the tip as hard as horn, flat, pointed, of the same white 
colour as the bill, and thickly barbed on each side. 
S9. FICUS PILEATUS , LINNAEUS. PILEATED WOODPECKER. 
WILSON, PL. XXIX. FIG. II MALE. EDINBURGH COLLEGE 
MUSEUM. 
This American species is the second in size among 
his tribe, and may be styled the great northern chief 
of the woodpeckers, though, in fact, his range ex- 
tends over the whole of the United States from the 
interior of Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. He is very 
numerous in the Gennesee country, and in all the tracts 
of high timbered forests, particularly in the neighbour- 
hood of our large rivers, w here he is noted for making 
a loud and almost incessant cackling before w r et 
w eather ; flying at such times in a restless uneasy 
manner from tree to tree, making the w oods echo to 
his outcry. In Pennsylvania and the northern states 
he is called the black w r oodcock ; in the southern 
states, the logcock. Almost every old trunk in the 
forest w here he resides bears the marks of his chisel. 
