HAIRY WOODPECKER. 395 
never seen but one of these birds in this county, and that about twenty 
years since. One was shot when hammering on the roof of a church in 
this city about the same time. Old citizens smile as they tell of the fun 
they had trying to kill with sticks, these birds which frequented the trees 
on the grounds of the “first school house.” 
The nest of the Pileated Woodpecker is an excavation dug out by the 
bill of the bird in a large limb or trunk of a high tree either living or 
dead. The eggs are of a rounded oval shape, glistening white, unmarked, 
and measure 1.25 by 1.02. 
GENUS PICUS. Linneeus. 
Bill with a lateral ridge extending from base to tip, Outer posterior toe longer than 
outer anterior. Nostrils linear. 
Picus viILLosus Linneeus. 
Hairy Woodpecker. 
Picus villosus, KIRTLAND, Ohio Geolog. Surv., 1833, 162.—READ, Proc. Phila. Acad. Nat. 
Sci., vi, 1853, 395.—KiRKPATRICK, Ohio Farmer, ix, 1860, 267.—-WHEATON, Ohio 
Agric. Rep. for 1860, 1861, 362; Reprint, 4; Food of Birds, etc., Ohio Agric. Rep. for 
1874, 1875, 569; Reprint, 9—LANGDON, Cat. Birds of Cin., 1877, 11; Revised List, 
Journ. Cin. Soc. Nat. Hist., i, 1879, 178; Reprint, 12. 
Picus rubricapillus, ReaD, Proc. Phila. Acad. Nat. Sci., vi, 1853, 395. 
Hairy Woodpecker, BALLOU, Field and Forest, iii, 1878, 136. 
Picus villosus, LINNZUS, Syst. Nat., i, 1766, 175. 
Picus rubricapillus, NUTTALL, Man., i, 1840, 685. 4 
Back black, with a long white stripe; quills and wing coverts with a profusion of white 
spots; four middle tail feathers black, next pair black and white, next two pairs white ; 
under parts white ; crown and sides of head black; with a white stripe over and behind 
the eye, another from the nasal feathers running below the eye to spread on the side 
of the neck, and a scarlet nuchal band in the male, wanting in the female; young 
with the crown mostly red or bronzy, or even yellowish. Length, 9-10; wing nearly 5; 
tail, 34. 
Habitat, the entire wooded portions of North America—the typical form east of the 
Rocky Mountains, reaching the Pacific, however, in Alaska. Var. harrisii from the 
Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. Hach variety grading in size according to latitude. 
Rather common resident, more frequent in fall, winter, and early 
spring than in summer. Breeds. 
The Hairy Woodpecker though most numerous along the edges of 
woodlands, is a frequent visitor during the colder months, in gardens of 
the city and in orchards. 
It is less inclined to accept the society of other species than its mina- 
ture, the Downy Woodpecker, and maintains a dignified manner, as it 
busies itself searching for the larva of insects in decaying trees, and 
spiders and eggs of insects in crevices of the bark. 
