892 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[June 5, 1909. 
The Ivory'Billed Woodpecker. 
Nothing short of a perfect .day will please 
a man in Florida. This morning was not one 
of them. The heavy gray mist was everywhere. 
A cloud had settled down on the pine flats; the 
tents were limp; the ponies, tethered to the 
trees, were bedraggled and silent; the hunting 
dogs were coiled up under the sheltering palms 
or hidden in the tents; my comrades were noise¬ 
lessly tramping about; the guides neither sang 
nor whistled; the roaring camp-fire of fat pine 
flared bravely in the face of its quenching enemy 
and the smoke rose funnel-shaped slowly above 
it. then mingled with its kindred gray mists. 
Even the stately pines, whose tops could not 
be seen, were silent and their bodies were black 
and spook}^ The outline of the dense ham¬ 
mock, through which the nearby creek silently 
wended its way to the St. Johns, appeared a 
solid wall. A pair of owls were separated, talk¬ 
ing to each other, and when they met they 
laughed like midnight fiends over the gloom. 
A gobbler was yelping away off yonder like a 
running hound — he was lost. Two stately whoop¬ 
ing cranes stalked from one pond to another, 
blit neitber did they flare their trumpets. With 
but few words the ponies were saddled, and 
bach hunting party with its guide took its sepa¬ 
rate way. 
Noah Jacobs and T went together. Bruce, 
Noah's slow and silent trail dog, picked his way 
along among the scrub palms, shunning each 
leaf as if he expected a deer to “rip’’ at any 
moment. 
“Mr. Graham.” said Jacobs, “I am not very 
well acquainted with the woods where we are 
going to-day, are you?” There was no re¬ 
sponse, but such a query as this from a born 
woodsman will make you think that there is 
nothing easier than to get lost on such a day 
in these boundless wilds, all looking alike, with 
no sun to guide' you, a contemplation that is 
scarcely a pleasure,' surrounded by impenetrable 
marshes, hammocks and waters. Directly Bruce 
^struck the' trail of''a deer, which he followed, 
■as is' his wont, with the stealth of a coyote, and 
ave looked every moment for it to rip, but it 
i'ed into-a'boggy creek -ivhich I did not care to 
'entbr. Noah suggested, however, that he would 
'go in and that 'I remain on the outside where 
'the deer, might rtin if started. 
■' Dismounting, M'stood on the edge of the pine 
flat. Presently' I heard an unusual bird call, 
one I had never before heard, which attracted 
my attention. I cautiously approached the sound 
and just inside the margin of the- creek ham¬ 
mock there was an elevated spot on which stood 
a number of dead and decaying pines. On 
these trees were a pair of ivory-billed wood¬ 
peckers intently engaged in getting their break¬ 
fast of worms. Each was on a different tree, 
where they perched high up with their long 
polished bills thrust full length into the decayed 
bark and sapwood. They were making the chips 
fly as fast as a carpenter could have done with 
a hatchet. All the while they were incessantly 
talking to each other, “Pee—peep—peah, peep,” 
the sounds resembling the burry reed notes of 
a Scotch bagpipe. (I mean no reflection on the 
birds; certainly none on the Scotchman's musical 
instrument, as my name will indicate.) The 
birds descended the tree as they fed, inching 
down, with the sharp spine feathers of their 
tails sticking into the bark. I observed that 
the muscular spine-feathered tail was used to 
give additional force to the neck as they made 
each thrust into the wood, which they split off 
in chips by a quick turn of the head, then they 
peered about for the worm or insect of which 
they were in search. 
During the twenty years in which I have 
visited and hunted the different kinds of game 
in Elorida, these were the first and only live 
ivory-billed woodpeckers I ever saw, although 
my hunting expeditions have taken me into the 
wilds of every description. Several years ago 
a young Floridian shot a pair of these birds in 
the wooded swamps of the St. Johns River and 
brought them to my camp, but each was badly 
liiangled with a charge of No. 4 shot, and I 
could preserve only the heads, wings, tails and 
feet, and these are now among my trophies. At 
the time I made an accurate measurement of 
them, as well as a description of their plumage 
and its colors. It was a rare bird when the 
great Audubon visited Florida to study it more 
than a half century ago. It is as strikingly 
beautiful as it is rare. 
Described in general terms it is black and 
white barred, the black not jet, but a glossy 
bluish black. Two bars of white run from the 
base of the skull on the back down to about 
the middle and between these two bars is one 
of black. The bill is polished white ivory, about 
two and one-half inches long from the feathers, 
and the upper part has two artistic flutes run¬ 
ning between a sharp ridge to the point. The 
male has a scarlet tuft or crest set in surround¬ 
ing black; the crest of the female is a pro¬ 
nounced bluish black, and this is the only dif¬ 
ference between the plumage of the two. 
Suddenly the sun burst through the clouds, 
then came the breeze and the mist beat back 
in great white rolls tipped with a golden glint 
and disappeared. Then the beautiful birds fled 
to the somber hammock with that graceful un¬ 
dulating swing of their kind, now flashing out 
their white-barred wings, now closing them. 
Farewell, little king and queen of the jungle. 
I may never see you or your like again. 
Through what scenes and changes have you 
passed? Have you not seen these marshes and 
savannas burn out the blackest night with the 
fires of the wild Seminole as the white man 
drove him back to the impenetrable glades? 
Have you not heard the howl of the last wolf 
around the camp-fires of the cowboy as he 
plotted its death by gun and poison? Did you 
not hear the bleat of the spotted fawn as it 
was devoured by the last panther, stealing back 
to the hummocks of the further South? 'Where 
is your comrade, the white egret, that swung 
among the glistening leaves of the magnolia 
like a fringe of snow beneath a Southern sun? 
Do not its last plumes now bedeck the head of 
some devout maiden in the thronged cathedral? 
Has the bellowing of the ugly saurian in the 
mire beneath your perch not startled you for 
the last time? Is the “antlered monarch of the 
waste” not vanishing like you? Farewell. 
Samuel Cecil Graham. 
How Old Forge (N. Y.) was Named. 
The associations clustering about this curious 
name are many and extremely interesting. It is 
now nigh unto one hundred years since John 
Brown, of Rhode Island, penetrated this wilder¬ 
ness, and after seven years of labor succeeded 
in completing and putting in operation his forge. 
From this forge wrou.ght iron was sent forth 
to the outer world. Mr. Brown had come into 
possession of some 210,000 acres of this forest- 
clad and mountainous territory (which was then 
practically worthless) without design; indeed, it 
was forced upon him, bein.g security given for 
money loaned. To stimulate immigration he 
offered tO' the first forty families coming in 
one hundred acres each. This inducement was 
quite effective. Many entered this land of 
promise with hope swelling their bosoms, only 
to discover that this wilderness, which they an¬ 
ticipated could by a reasonable amount of labor 
and cultivation be transformed into an agricuF 
tural district, “made to- blossom as the rose,” 
was incapable of the same. Finding, therefore; 
their hopes groundless, they one after another 
took their departure for “fields new and pastures 
green.” 
BIRD MIGRANTS IN A MAY SNOWSTORM IN WISCONSIN. 
Photograph by O. W. Smith. 
