Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/363

Rh single tree, but there seems to be little evidence that the trees are ever injured by the process, at all events not enough to offset the advantage received from the destruction of borers and other insects.

The red-headed woodpecker is probably the most generally known and widely distributed species in this country, though rare in New England except, perhaps, in the more southwestern portion. I have seen but two specimens in New Hampshire, the first in the southern part of the State within a few miles of the coast. One hot June day he came flying across the fields and, alighting against the trunk of an apple tree, began hammering away at the bark in true woodpecker style, then, descending to the ground, appeared to search for insects in the plowed earth beneath the tree. After a few minutes he took wing once more and steered off toward the south. Half a dozen years later I saw one flying among the mountains near Lake Winnepesaukee, but had no opportunities for observing it. They were said to be quite abundant in southern New England in the autumn of 1881, presumably migrating visitors from the West, where they are much more common. Like the flicker, this species exhibits a decided fondness for fruits and grain of various sorts, and is generally considered a destructive bird on this account.

The ivory-billed woodpecker, now confined to the Gulf States and lower Mississippi Valley, is generally admitted to be the finest representative of his race. He is nearly two feet in length, with a scarlet crest and white stripes down each side of his neck. A considerable portion of his wings is also white. In the Southern swamps he still carries on the woodpecker trade on a scale in keeping with his size. The alacrity with which he can hack to pieces the decaying trunk of a tree is said to be simply incredible to one who has never had the good fortune to see him at work. The pileated woodpecker, or logcock, is somewhat smaller, with less white on the wings. Formerly abundant throughout the country, this species has retreated and diminished in numbers with the clearing off of the old original forest growth, and is now only to be found in the most secluded woods and mountain regions, and is nowhere common. A few pairs are still said to linger in the western parts of Massachusetts, and I have found unmistakable evidence of their presence in the newly chiseled trunks of dead pines on some of the New Hampshire mountains, but as yet have been singularly unfortunate in never having seen a living specimen.