The bird drums a roll, as do other woodpeckers. The only other drumming of comparable intensity is that of the yellow-bellied sapsucker, but commonly the pileated woodpecker’s performance is so heavy as to be unmistakable. Often the drumming consists not of a roll but of slow heavy beats. Dr. Sutton (1930) writes: “On May 19, 1925, * * * I heard a male drumming for over an hour * * * During the whole period there was a noticeable similarity of the performances * * * At least fifty or sixty times there was an introductory, rapidly given _roll_; then a pause, followed by three distinct blows, * * * giving much the impression of a queer rhythm beat upon an aboriginal drum.” With this the description of the drumming of the sapsucker given by Dr. Harry C. Oberholser (1896b) may be compared. Ernest Waters Vickers (1915) gives the following description of “the masterly roll of the great log-cock”: “This roll is composed of twelve strokes or blows, forming an ascending and descending climax; increasing in rapidity and volume to the middle and dying in force and rapidity just as it began. While the bird may not give the complete roll, may break off anywhere, it is always, so far as I have heard, a part of the above * * * A mellow yet powerful cellular jar to which the whole wooded heart of the forest makes echoing response--a solemn and ancient sound. * * * “Thus * * * I heard one drumming far away on a sounding board of peculiar musical resonance and power to carry * * * I had often heard this roll a full mile and a half away; once or twice I had even heard it in the house with doors and windows closed! * * * This old sounding-board was the hollow limb or arm of a big tulip tree or “white wood” flung out at right angle from the trunk 60 or 70 feet from the ground, a mere shell as appeared * * * sound and hard and barkless. The spot where he hammered was white where the weathered gray fibers had been beaten off by constant use.