A History of North American Birds; Land Birds; Vol. 2 of 3

by Spencer Fullerton Baird; T. M. Brewer; Robert Ridgway

Hylotomus pileatus.

Sp. Char. Fourth and fifth quills equal and longest; third intermediate between sixth and seventh. Bill blue-black; more horn-color beneath. General color of body, wings, and tail dull greenish-black. A narrow white streak from just above the eye to the occiput; a wider one from the nostril feathers (inclusive), under the eye and along the side of the head and neck; sides of the breast (concealed by the wing), axillaries, and under wing-coverts, and concealed bases of all the quills, with chin and beneath the head, white, tinged with sulphur-yellow. Entire crown from the base of the bill to a well-developed occipital crest, as also a patch on the ramus of the lower jaw, scarlet-red. A few faint white crescents on the sides of the body and on the abdomen. Longer primaries generally tipped with white. Length, about 18.00; wing, 9.50. Female without the red on the cheek, and the anterior half of that on the top of the head replaced by black.

Hab. Wooded parts of North America from Atlantic to Pacific. Localities: E. Texas (not Rio Grande!), (Dresser, Ibis, 1865, 469, breeds).

Specimens of this species from Fort Liard in the Northern Rocky Mountains, and from Puget Sound region, are nearly four inches longer than those from the Southern Atlantic States, and are scarcely exceeded in size by the Ivory-billed Woodpecker.

Specimens from the northwest coast region (Columbia River, British

Columbia, etc.) have no trace of the white spots on ends of outer primaries, always found in eastern specimens.

Habits. No member of this large family has a wider distribution than the Pileated Woodpecker, extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the extremest limits of the northern forests, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It seems to be a resident everywhere but in its extreme northern localities, rather than a migratory species. There are specimens in the Smithsonian collection from Nelson River, on the north, to St. Johns River, Florida, on the south, and from Pennsylvania on the east to the Rio Grande and the Columbia on the west. Sir John Richardson (Fauna Boreali-Americana, II, p. 304) speaks of it as resident all the year in the interior of the fur countries, up to the 62d or 63d parallels, rarely appearing near Hudson’s Bay, but frequenting the gloomiest recesses of the forests that skirt the Rocky Mountains. Dr. Woodhouse, in his Report on the natural history of the expedition down the Zuñi and the Colorado Rivers, speaks of this Woodpecker as having been found abundant in the Indian Territory, Texas, and New Mexico. Neither Dr. Gambel nor Dr. Heermann give it in their lists of the birds of California, nor does Dr. Newberry mention meeting with it in his Report of the zoölogy of his route. Dr. Suckley, however, speaks of the Log-Cock as abundant in the vicinity of Fort Steilacoom, Washington Territory, during summer, and Dr. Cooper also mentions it as an abundant and constant resident in the forests of the Territory. I have occasionally met with it in the wilder portions of New Hampshire and Maine, but have nowhere been so fortunate as to observe its nest or its breeding-habits. It has always seemed a very shy bird, difficult of approach, always keeping at a safe distance, and ever greeting your attempts for a nearer view with a loud, cackling cry, not unlike a derisive laugh.

According to the observations of Wilson, their eggs are deposited in the hole of a tree dug out by themselves, no other materials being used but the soft chips of rotten wood. The female lays six eggs, of a snowy whiteness, and they are said to raise two broods in a season.

Mr. Audubon states that it almost always breeds in the interior of the forest, and frequently on trees placed in deep swamps over the water, appearing to give a preference to the southern side of the tree, on which side the hole is usually found to which they retreat in the winter and during stormy weather. The hole is sometimes bored perpendicularly, but occasionally in the form of that of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. The usual depth is from twelve to eighteen inches, the breadth from two and a half to three, and at the bottom five or six. He believed they raise but a single brood in a season. The young follow their parents a long while, sometimes until the return of spring.