When thistle-blows do lightly float
About the pasture-height,
And shrills the hawk a parting note,
And creeps the frost at night,
Then hilly ho! though singing so,
And whistle as I may,
There comes again the old heart pain
Through all the livelong day.
In high wind creaks the leafless tree
And nods the fading fern:
The knolls are dun as snow-clouds be,
And cold the sun does burn.
The ho, hollo! though calling so,
I cannot keep it down;
The tears arise unto my eyes,
And thoughts are chill and brown.
Far in the cedars’ dusky stoles,
Where the sere ground-vine weaves,
The partridge drums funereal rolls
Above the fallen leaves.
And hip, hip, ho! though cheering so,
It stills no whit the pain;
For drip, drip, drip, from bare branch-tip,
I hear the year’s last rain.
So drive the cold cows from the hill,
And call the wet sheep in;
And let their stamping clatter fill
The barn with warming din.
And ho, folk, ho! though it is so
That we no more may roam,
We still will find a cheerful mind
Around the fire at home!
—C. L. Cleaveland.
THE PILEATED WOODPECKER.
(_Ceophloeus pileatus_.)
In years gone by, when large sections of the United States were covered
with deeply wooded virgin forests frequented only by denizens of the
wildwood, the Pileated Woodpecker was an abundant resident through
nearly all of North America. A bird citizen of the deeper and more
extensive forest regions, it has gradually retreated before the advance
of man, and it is a very rare visitant in the Eastern States and is only
found in the thickly settled and heavily timbered bottom lands which the
human intruder seldom penetrates. In the Southern States it is more
common and may be considered abundant in some sections.
Mr. Manly Hardy says: “The Pileated Woodpecker is a constant resident of
Maine, but rarely leaves the vicinity of large timber. It prefers places
where large hemlocks abound, especially those localities where a few
have been killed by camp building or small fires.” A strange feature of
its distribution is that, though it is distributed quite generally
throughout North America, there are many heavily timbered areas, well
suited to its habits, in which it is not found. If it occurs at all it
is very rare in the Southern Rocky Mountain regions, and is also rare in
Alaska.
The Pileated Woodpecker is a beautiful bird of great size and strength.
Its bill is both large and powerful. In fact, it is exceeded in size by
but one of the Woodpeckers—the ivory-billed species—which is a resident
of the Southern States. It is quite variable in its habits. In some
sections it is very shy and retiring, while in others it is quite tame
and becomes quite accustomed to man if not ruthlessly annoyed. Mr.
Hardy, writing of his experience with this bird in the woods of Maine,
says: “I once had two so tame they would allow me to sit within four
paces of them, and put my hand upon the tree when they were not ten feet
above my head.” Mr. Chapman, writing of its habits in the cypress swamps
of Florida, says: “There, contrary to the experience of Audubon, I found
it by no means a wild bird. Indeed, flickers were more difficult to
approach,” and he also writes: “I have called these birds to me by
simply clapping my slightly closed palms, making a sound in imitation of
their tapping on a resonant limb.” Another writer states that when
called in this manner, “they seem to lose their usual shyness and seem
stupefied at not finding their mate, as they had expected.”
Few birds are more useful in the preservation of the forest from
destruction by insect pests. “A workman is known by his chips.” The
energy and perseverance of the Pileated Woodpecker, as it seeks for the
destructive borers or other injurious insects, in the bark and wood of
afflicted trees, is amply attested by numerous denuded trees and by the
strips of bark and piles of chips lying on the ground. The hammering of
the more familiar species of woodpeckers is but a light tapping when
compared with the loud and resounding whacks of its powerful strokes. It
has been known to “chisel holes six or eight inches deep in cedar and
other soft-wood trees, and as large as the holes in a post-and-rail
fence,” and to “pick a large hole through two inches of frozen green
hemlock to get at the hollow interior.” It seldom, if ever, attacks
healthy trees and it is a constant resident of extensive forests that
have been swept by destructive fires and the bare tree trunks left to
decay.
[Illustration: PILEATED WOODPECKER.
(Ceophloeus pileatus).
½ Life-size.
FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES.]
Mr. Wilson, that enthusiastic student of bird life, writes in his usual
interesting manner concerning the habits of the Pileated Woodpecker. In
his “American Ornithology” he says: “Almost every old trunk in the
forest where it resides bears the marks of his chisel. Wherever it
perceives a tree beginning to decay, it examines it round and round and
with great skill and dexterity strips off the bark in sheets of five or
six feet in length, to get at the hidden cause of the disease, and
labors with a gayety and activity really surprising. I have seen it
separate the greatest 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 to tree, in digging, climbing or barking, he
seems perpetually in a hurry.”
During the mating season it is exceedingly noisy, not only spending much
time in drumming, but also frequently uttering its love notes which to
Mr. Nehrling sounds like “a-wuck, a-wuck.” Mr. Chapman describes their
usual call note as a “sonorous cow-cow-cow, repeated rather slowly many
times,” and when two birds come together they utter a “wichew note”
similar to that of the flicker. Its note of alarm has been likened to an
oft-repeated ha-he, ha-he, ha-he. The same observer hears in its call
note a constant repetition of a-wick, a-wick and at times
tack-tack-tack.
For its nest the Pileated Woodpecker excavates cavities in tree trunks
at heights varying from twenty to eighty feet above the ground. Both
sexes assist in the work of making the cavity which, Major Bendire
states, “vary from seven to thirty inches in depth, and is gradually
enlarged toward the bottom, where it is about six inches wide.” He also
says that it takes from seven to twelve days to complete it and when
completed it is quite an artistic piece of work, the walls of the cavity
being quite smooth and the edges of the entrance being nicely beveled.
The eggs are usually deposited on a layer of chips. Not infrequently
every chip, as soon as it is loosened, is removed to a distance in order
to remove every trace of the nesting site.
Birds as well as other animals are afflicted with parasitic worms. Mr.
Langdon found on dissecting a Pileated Woodpecker, a “slender tape-worm
about fifteen inches long and one-thirty-second of an inch wide,” and in
the tissues beneath the skin of the neck “were two thread-like, round
worms of a pale pinkish tint and about three-fourths of an inch in
length.”
Of this wonderful bird we may truthfully say with Mr. Langille, “Whether
one notes his strong flight, his elastic bounding and springing along
the trunks of the trees, the effective chiseling of his powerful bill,
or his sonorous cackling, one is particularly impressed with the spirit
and immense energy of the bird.”