IVORYBILL. The great Southern woodpeck er (eampephilus prilicipalis), now confined to the cypress swamps of the Gulf States, and near ly extinct. It is one of the largest of the tribe, and so impressed Linne by its size (length. 20 inches) and grandeur, that he called it 'prince.' Its plumage is glossy black, with the secondary and shorter primaries pure white, and a white stripe down each side of the neck and along the scapulars, meeting in the middle of the hack. The long crest of the male is scarlet, but that of the female is bluish-black: the hill is ivory-yel low, straight. and chisel-like, callable of drilling holes in hard wood. and reaching the deeply buried grubs upon which it mainly feeds. This fine species was formerly a resident from the Po tomac and Ohio rivers southward, and the early ornithologists have much to say of it. Audubon
says its food included grapes, and that its nest was a hole, like that of other woodpeckers. dug by the alternate labor of both mates. always in a living tree. He remarks its graceful flight—the bird seems merely to swing itself from time top of one tree to that of another in an elegantly curved line; and describes its notes as clear, loud, yet very plaintive. These birds were never very numerous, since they were constantly killed by the Indians, who valued highly their heads as ornaments and as symbols of dignity and courage. The frontiersmen, with barbaric love of color. copied the custom, and adorned their shot pouches and caps with the gaudy crests. and ignorant Southern farmers killed them and all woodpeckers under the mistaken notion that they were destroying the forest trees.