File:Birds and nature (1902) (14748246561).jpg

Identifier: birdsnature121902chic (find matches)
Title: Birds and nature
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Birds Natural history
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : A.W. Mumford, Publisher
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Institution Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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e Pileated Woodpecker,as it seeks for the destructive borers orother injurious insects, in the bark andwood of afflicted trees, is amply attestedby numerous denuded trees and by thestrips of bark and piles of chips lying onthe ground. The hammering of the morefamiliar species of woodpeckers is but alight tapping when compared with theloud and resounding whacks of its power-ful strokes. It has been known to chiselholes six or eight inches deep in cedarand other soft-wood trees, and as largeas the holes in a post-and-rail fence,^and to pick a large hole through twoinches of frozen green hemlock to get atthe hollow interior. It seldom, if ever,,attacks healthy trees and it is a constantresident of extensive forests that havebeen swept by destructive fires and thebare tree trunks left to decay. Mr. Wilson, that enthusiastic studentof bird life, writes in his usual interesting-manner concerning the habits of the Pi-leated Woodpecker. In his AmericanOrnithology he says: Almost every old 146
Text Appearing After Image:
OOPYBIiHT 1502, BY FROM COL. CHI, ACAD. SCIENCES. PILEATED WOODPECKER. (Ceophloeus pileatus). y. Life-size. trunk in the forest where it resides hearsthe marks of his chisel. Wherever it per-ceives a tree beginning- to decay, it exam-ines it round and round and with greatskill and dexterity strips off the bark insheets of five or six feet in length, to getat the hidden cause of the disease, andlabors with a gayety and activity reallysurprising. I have seen it separate thegreatest part of the bark from a large,dead pine tree, for twenty or thirty feet,in less than a quarter of an hour.Whether engaged in flying from tree totree, in digging, climbing or barking, heseems perpetually in a hurry. During the mating season it is exceed-ingly noisy, not only spending muchtime in drumming, but also frequently ut-tering its love notes which to Mr. Nehrl-ing sounds like a-wuck, a-wuck. Mr.Chapman describes their usual call noteas a sonorous cow-cow-cow, repeatedrather slowly many times, and whent

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