Family PICIDÆ.—The Woodpeckers.
Char. Outer toe turned backwards permanently, not versatile laterally, the basal portion of the tongue capable of great protrusion.
The preceding characters combined appear to express the essential characters of the Picidæ. In addition, it may be stated that the tongue itself is quite small, flat, and short, acute and horny, usually armed along the edges with recurved hooks. The horns of the hyoid apparatus are generally very long, and curve round the back of the skull, frequently to the base of the bill, playing in a sheath, when the tongue is thrown forward out of the mouth to transfix an insect.
There are twelve tail-feathers, of which the outer is, however, very small and rudimentary (lying concealed between the outer and adjacent feathers), so that only ten are usually counted. The tail is nearly even, or cuneate, never forked, the shafts very rigid in the true Woodpeckers; soft in Picumninæ and Yunginæ. The outer primary is generally very short, or spurious, but not wanting. The bill is chisel or wedge shaped, with sharp angles and ridges and straight culmen; sometimes the culmen is a little curved, in which case it is smoother, and without the ridges. The tarsi in the North American forms are covered with large plates anteriorly, posteriorly with small ones, usually more or less polygonal. The claws are compressed, much curved, very strong and acute.
The Picidæ are found all over the world with the exception of Madagascar, Australia, the Moluccas, and Polynesia. America is well provided with them, more than half of the described species belonging to the New World.
The subfamilies of the Picidæ may be most easily distinguished as follows, although other characters could readily be given:—
Picinæ. Tail-feathers pointed, and lanceolate at end; the shafts very rigid, thickened and elastic.
Picumninæ. Tail soft and short, about half the length of wing; the feathers without stiffened shafts, rather narrow, linear, and rounded at end.
Yunginæ. Tail soft and rather long, about three fourths the length of wing; the feathers broad, and obtusely rounded at end.
Of these subfamilies the Picinæ alone occur north of Mexico. The Yunginæ, to which the well-known Wryneck of England (Jynx torquilla) belongs, are exclusively Old World; the Picumninæ belong principally to the tropical regions of America, although a few species occur in Africa and India. One species, Picumnus micromegas, Sundevall, belongs to St. Domingo, although erroneously assigned to Brazil. This is the giant of the group, being about the size of the White-bellied Nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis) the other species being mostly very diminutive, varying from three to four inches in length.
Subfamily PICINÆ.
The diagnosis on the preceding page will serve to distinguish this group from its allies, without the necessity of going into greater detail. It includes by far the largest percentage of the Picidæ, and in the great variations of form has been variously subdivided by authors into sections. Professor Sundevall, in his able monograph,[124] establishes the following four series, referring all to the single genus Picus:—
I. Angusticolles. Neck slender, elongated. Nostrils concealed by bristles. Tail-feathers black or brownish, immaculate.
II. Securirostres. Neck not slender, and shorter. Nostrils concealed by bristles. Bill stout, cuneate, with the nasal ridges widely distant from each other.
III. Ligonirostres. Neck not slender. Nostrils covered, nasal ridges of bill placed near the culmen (or at least nearer it than the lower edge of the upper mandible), for the most part obsolete anteriorly.
IV. Nudinares. Nostrils open, uncovered by bristly hairs. Neck and bill various.
Of these series, the first and second correspond with Piceæ, as given below, while Centureæ and Colapteæ both belong to Ligonirostres. The Nudinares are not represented in North America, and by only one group, Celeus, in any portion of the continent.
In the following account of the Picinæ, we shall not pretend to discuss the relationship of the North American species to the Picinæ in general, referring to Sundevall’s work, and the monographs of Malherbe and Cassin, for information on the subject. For our present purposes they may be conveniently, even if artificially, arranged in the following sections:—
Piceæ. Bill variable in length; the outlines above and below nearly straight; the ends truncated; a prominent ridge on the side of the mandible springing from the middle of the base, or a little below, and running out either on the commissure, or extending parallel to and a little above it, to the end, sometimes obliterated or confluent with the lateral bevel of the bill. Nostrils considerably overhung by the lateral ridge, more or less linear, and concealed by thick bushy tufts of feathers at the base of the bill. Outer posterior toe generally longer than the anterior.
Centureæ. Bill rather long; the outlines, that of the culmen especially, decidedly curved. The lateral ridge much nearest the culmen, and, though quite distinct at the base, disappearing before coming to the lower edge of the mandible; not overhanging the nostrils, which are broadly oval, rounded anteriorly, and not concealed by the bristly feathers at the base. Outer pair of toes nearly equal; the anterior rather longer.
Colapteæ. Bill rather long, much depressed, and the upper outline
much curved to the acutely pointed (not truncate) tip. The commissure considerably curved. Bill without any ridges. The nostrils broadly oval, and much exposed. Anterior outer toe longest.
PLATE XLVIII.
1. Geococcyx californianus ♂ Cal., 12925.
2. Crotophaga ani. ♀ Fla., 8639.
3. Coccygus americanus. ♂ Penn., 1541.
4. Coccygus minor.
5. Coccygus erythrophthalmus. 27028.
The preceding diagnoses will serve to distinguish the three groups sufficiently for our present purposes; the bill being strongest in the Picinæ and best fitted for cutting into trees by its more perfect wedge-shape, with strengthening ridges, as well as by the lateral bevelling of both mandibles, which are nearly equal in thickness at the base, and with their outlines nearly straight. The lateral ridge is prominent, extending to the edge or end of the bill, and overhangs the nostrils, which are narrow and hidden. The Centureæ and the Colapteæ have the upper mandible more curved (the commissure likewise), the lower mandible smaller and weaker, the bill with little or no lateral bevelling. The nostrils are broadly oval and exposed. In the former, however, there is a distinct lateral ridge visible for a short distance from the base of the bill; while in the other there is no ridge at all, and the mandible is greatly curved.
In all the species of North American Woodpeckers, there is more or less red on the head in the male, and frequently in the female. The eggs of all are lustrous polished white, without any markings, and laid in hollow trees, upon a bed of chips, no material being carried in for the construction of the nest.
Section PICEÆ.
With the common characters, as already given, there are several well-marked generic groups in this section of Woodpeckers which may be arranged for the United States species as follows:—
A. Posterior outer toe longer than the anterior outer one. (Fourth toe longer than third.)
a. Lateral ridge starting above the middle of the base of the bill, and extending to the tip.
1. Campephilus. Lateral ridge above the middle of the lateral profile of the bill when opposite the end of the nostrils, which are ovate, and rounded anteriorly. Bill much depressed, very long; gonys very long. Posterior outer toe considerably longer than the anterior. Primaries long, attenuated towards the tip. Spurious quill nearly half the second. Shafts of four middle tail-feathers remarkably stout, of equal size, and abruptly very much larger than the others; two middle tail-feathers narrower towards bases than towards end.[125] A pointed occipital crest.
2. Picus. Lateral ridge in the middle of the lateral profile opposite the end of the nostrils, which are ovate and sharp-pointed anteriorly. Bill moderate, nearly as broad as high.
Outer hind toe moderately longer than the outer fore toe. Primaries broad to the tip, and rounded. Spurious primary not one third the second quill.
3. Picoides. Lateral ridge below the middle of the profile, opposite the end of the ovate acute nostrils, which it greatly overhangs. Bill greatly depressed; lower mandible deeper than the upper. Inner hind toe wanting, leaving only three toes. Tufts of nasal bristles very full and long.
b. Lateral ridge starting below the middle of the base of the bill, and running as a distinct ridge into the edge of the commissure at about its middle; the terminal half of the mandible rounded on the sides, although the truncate tip is distinctly bevelled laterally.
4. Sphyropicus. Nostrils considerably overhung by the lateral ridge, very small, linear. Gonys as long as the culmen, from the nostrils. Tips of tail-feathers elongated and linear, not cuneate. Wings very long; exposed portion of spurious primary about one fourth that of second quill.
B. Posterior outer toe considerably shorter than the anterior outer one. (Fourth toe shorter than third).
5. Hylotomus. Bill depressed. Lateral ridge above the middle of the lateral profile near the base. Nostrils elliptical, wide, and rounded anteriorly. Tail almost as in Sphyropicus. A pointed occipital crest, as in Campephilus, and not found in the other genera.
The arrangement in the preceding diagnosis is perhaps not perfectly natural, although sufficiently so for our present purpose. Thus, Hylotomus, in having the lateral ridge extending to the end of the bill, is like Picus, but the nostrils are broader, more open, and not acute anteriorly. The tail-feathers of Sphyropicus differ greatly from those of the others in being abruptly acuminate, the points elongated, narrow, and nearly linear, instead of being gently cuneate at the ends. Campephilus and Hylotomus belong to Sundevall’s Angusticolles, with their long slender neck, and elongated occipital crest (Dryocopinæ, Cab.); the other genera to Securirostres, with shorter, thicker neck, and no crest (Dendrocopinæ, Cab.). But no two genera in the subfamily are more distinct than Campephilus and Hylotomus.
Genus CAMPEPHILUS, Gray.
Campephilus, Gray, List of Genera? 1840. (Type, C. principalis.)
Megapicus, Malherbe, Mém. Ac. de Metz, 1849, 317.
Gen. Char. Bill considerably longer than the head, much depressed, or broader than high at the base, becoming somewhat compressed near the middle and gradually bevelled off at the tip. Culmen very slightly curved, gonys as concave, the curve scarcely appreciable; commissure straight. Culmen with a parallel ridge on each side, starting a little above the centre of the basal outline of the bill, the ridge projecting outwards and downwards, and a slight concavity between it and the acute ridge of the culmen. Gonys considerably more than half the commissure. Nostrils oval below the lateral ridge near the base of the bill; concealed by the bristly feathers directed forward. Similar feathers are seen at the sides of the lower jaw and on the chin.
Campephilus principalis.
3869 ♂
Feet large; outer hind toe much longest; claw of inner fore toe reaching to middle of outer fore claw; inner hind toe scarcely more than half the outer one; its claw reaching as far as the base of the inner anterior claw, considerably more than half the outer anterior toe. Tarsus rather shorter than the inner fore toe. Tail long, cuneate; shafts of the four middle feathers abruptly much larger than the others, and with a deep groove running continuously along their under surface; webs of the two middle feathers deflected, almost against each other, so that the feathers appear narrower at the base than terminally. Wings long and pointed, the third, fourth, and fifth quills longest; sixth secondary longest, leaving six “tertials,” instead of three or four as usual; primaries long, attenuated. Color continuous black, relieved by white patches. Head with a pointed occipital crest.
This genus embraces the largest known kind of Woodpecker, and is confined to America. Of the two species usually assigned to it, only one occurs within the limits of the United States, C. imperialis, given by Audubon, and by subsequent authors on his credit, really belonging to Southern Mexico and Central America. The diagnoses of the species are as follows:—
Common Characters. Bill ivory-white. Body entirely glossy blue-black. A scapular stripe, secondaries, ends of inner primaries, and under wing-coverts, white. Crest scarlet in the male, black in the female.
1. C. principalis. A white stripe on each side of the neck. Bristly feathers at the base of the bill white.
White neck-stripe not extending to the base of the bill. Black feathers of crest longer than the scarlet. Wing, 10.00; culmen, 2.60. Hab. Gulf region of United States … var. principalis.
White stripe reaching the base of the bill. Scarlet feathers of crest longer than the black. Wing, 9.50; culmen, 2.40. Hab. Cuba … var. bairdi.[126]
2. C. imperialis. No white stripe on the sides of the neck. More white on the wings. Bristly feathers at the base of the bill black. Hab. South Mexico; Guatemala.
Campephilus principalis, Gray.
IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER.
Picus principalis, Linn. Syst. Nat. I, 1766, 173.—Wilson, Am. Orn. IV, 1811, 20, pl. xxxix, f. 6.—Wagler, Syst. Avium, 1827, No. 1.—Aud. Orn. Biog. I, 1832, 341; V, 525, pl. lxvi.—Ib. Birds America, IV, 1842, 214, pl. cclvi.—Sundevall, Consp. Pic. 4. Dendrocopus principalis, Bon. List, 1838. Campephilus principalis, Gray, List Genera, 1840.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 83.—Cab. & Hein. Mus. Hein. IV, II, 100.—Dresser, Ibis, 1865, 468 (breeds in Brazos and Trinity, Texas).—Gray, Cat. 53.—Allen, Birds E. Florida, 301. Dryotomus (Megapicus) principalis, Bon. Con. Zyg. Aten. Ital. 1854, 7. Dryocopus principalis, Bon. Consp. 1850, 132. White-billed Woodpecker, Catesby, Car. I, 16.—Pennant, Latham.
Sp. Char. Fourth and fifth quills equal; third a little shorter. Bill horn-white. Body entirely of a glossy blue-black (glossed with green below); a white stripe beginning half an inch posterior to the commissure, and passing down the sides of the neck, and extending down each side of the back. Under wing-coverts, and the entire exposed portion of the secondary quills, with ends of the inner primaries, bristles, and a short stripe at the base of the bill, white. Crest scarlet, upper surface black. Length, 21.00; wing, 10.00. Female similar, without any red on the head, and with two spots of white on the end of the outer tail-feather.
Hab. Southern Atlantic and Gulf States. North to North Carolina and mouth of the Ohio; west to Arkansas and Eastern Texas. Localities: Brazos and Trinity Rivers, Texas (Dresser, Ibis, 1865, 468, breeds).
In the male the entire crown (with its elongated feathers) is black. The scarlet commences just above the middle of the eye, and, passing backwards a short distance, widens behind and bends down as far as the level of the under edge of the lower jaw. The feathers which spring from the back of the head are much elongated above; considerably longer than those of the crown. In the specimen before us the black feathers of the crest do not reach as far back as the scarlet.
Reference has already been made to the Cuban variety of the Ivory-billed
Woodpecker named C. bairdi by Mr. Cassin, and differing in smaller size; extension of the white cheek-stripe to the very base of the bill, and the excess in length of the upper black feathers of the crest over the scarlet. These features appear to be constant, and characteristic of a local race.
For the reasons already adduced, we drop C. imperialis from the list of North American birds, although given as such by Audubon.
Campephilus principalis.
Habits. So far as we have information in regard to the geographical distribution of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, it is chiefly restricted in its range to the extreme Southern States, and especially to those bordering on the Gulf of Mexico. Wilson states that very few, if any, are ever found north of Virginia, and not many even in that State. His first specimen was obtained near Wilmington, N. C. It is not migratory, but is a resident where found.
Mr. Audubon, who is more full than any other writer in his account of this bird, assigns to it a more extended distribution. He states that in descending the Ohio River he met with it near the confluence of that river with the Mississippi, and adds that it is frequently met with in following the windings of the latter river either downwards towards the sea, or upwards in the direction of the Missouri. On the Atlantic he was inclined to make North Carolina the limit of its northern distribution, though now and then individuals of the species have been accidentally met with as far north as Maryland. To the westward of the Mississippi he states that it is found in all the dense forests bordering the streams which empty into it, from the very declivities of the Rocky Mountains. The lower parts of the Carolinas, Georgia, North Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, are, however, its favorite resorts, and in those States it constantly resides.
It was observed by Dr. Woodhouse in the timber on the Arkansas River, and in Eastern Texas, but quite rarely in both places. It was not, however, met with in any other of the government expeditions, either to the Pacific, in the survey of the railroad routes, or in that for the survey of the Mexican boundary line. It is given as a bird of Cuba by De la Sagra, in his catalogue
of the birds of that island, as observed by him, October, 1850, and by Dr. John Gundlach, in his list of the birds that breed in Cuba. It is not mentioned by Gosse among the birds of Jamaica, nor by the Newtons as found in St. Croix. As it is not a migratory bird, it may be regarded as breeding in all its localities, except where it is obviously an accidental visitant.
Wilson, who never met with the nest of this Woodpecker, states, on the authority of reliable informants, that it breeds in the large-timbered cypress swamps of the Carolinas. In the trunks of these trees at a considerable height from the ground, both parents working alternately, these birds dig out a large and capacious cavity for their eggs and young. Trees thus dug out have frequently been cut down with both the eggs and the young in them. The hole was described to Wilson as generally a little winding, to keep out the rain, and sometimes five feet deep. The eggs were said to be generally four, sometimes five in number, as large as pullets’, pure white, and equally thick at both ends. The young make their appearance about the middle or end of June.
Mr. Audubon, whose account of the breeding-habits of the Ivory-bill is given from his own immediate observations, supplies a more minute and detailed history of its nesting. He states that it breeds earlier in spring than any other species of its tribe, and that he has observed it boring a hole for that purpose as early as the beginning of March. This hole he believed to be always made in the trunk of a live tree, generally an ash or a hackberry, and at a great height. It pays great regard to the particular situation of the tree and the inclination of the trunk, both with a view to retirement and to secure the aperture against rains. To prevent the latter injury, the hole is generally dug immediately under the protection of a large branch. It is first bored horizontally a few inches, then directly downward, and not in a spiral direction, as Wilson was informed. This cavity is sometimes not more than ten inches in depth, while at other times it reaches nearly three feet downward into the heart of the tree. The older the bird, the deeper its hole, in the opinion of Mr. Audubon. The average diameter of the different nests which Mr. Audubon examined was about seven inches in the inner parts, although the entrance is only just large enough to admit the bird. Both birds work most assiduously in making these excavations. Mr. Audubon states that in two instances where the Woodpeckers saw him watching them at their labors, while they were digging their nests, they abandoned them. For the first brood, he states, there are generally six eggs. These are deposited on a few chips at the bottom of the hole, and are of a pure white color. The young may be seen creeping out of their holes about a fortnight before they venture to fly to any other tree. The second brood makes its appearance about the 15th of August. In Kentucky and Indiana the Ivory-bill seldom raises more than one brood in a season. Its flight is described by Audubon as graceful in the extreme, though seldom prolonged to more than a few hundred yards at a time, except when it has occasion to cross a
large river. It then flies in deep undulations, opening its wings at first to their full extent, and nearly closing them to renew their impulse. The transit from tree to tree is performed by a single sweep, as if the bird had been swung in a curved line from the one to the other.
Except during the love-season it never utters a sound when on the wing. On alighting, or when, in ascending a tree, it leaps against the upper parts of the trunk, its remarkable voice may be constantly heard in a clear, loud, and rather plaintive tone, sometimes to the distance of half a mile, and resembling the false high note of a clarionet. This may be represented by the monosyllable pait thrice repeated.
The food of this Woodpecker consists principally of beetles, larvæ, and large grubs. They are also especially fond of ripe wild grapes, which they eat with great avidity, hanging by their claws to the vines, often in the position of a Titmouse. They also eat ripe persimmons, hackberries, and other fruit, but are not known to disturb standing corn nor the fruits of the orchard.
These birds attack decaying trees so energetically as often to cause them to fall. So great is their strength, that Audubon has known one of them to detach, at a single blow, a strip of bark eight inches long, and, by beginning at the top branch of a dead tree, tear off the bark to the extent of thirty feet in the course of a few hours, all the while sounding its loud notes.
Mr. Audubon further states that this species generally moves in pairs, that the female is the least shy and the most clamorous, and that, except when digging a hole for the reception of their eggs, they are not known to excavate living trees, but only those attacked by worms. When wounded, they seek the nearest tree, and ascend with great rapidity by successive hops. When taken by the hand, they strike with great violence, and inflict severe wounds with their bills and claws.
Mr. Dresser states that these birds were found on the Brazos River, and also on the Trinity, where they were by no means rare.
Wilson dwells at some length and with great force upon the great value of these birds to our forests. They never injure sound trees, only those diseased and infested with insects. The pine timber of the Southern States is often destroyed, thousands of acres in a season, by the larvæ of certain insects. In Wilson’s day this was noticeable in the vicinity of Georgetown, S. C., and was attributed by him to the blind destruction of this and other insect-eating birds.
An egg of this species (Smith. Coll., No. 16,196) taken near Wilmington, N. C., by Mr. N. Giles, measures 1.35 inches in length by .95 of an inch in breadth. It is of a highly polished porcelain whiteness, and is much more oblong in shape and more pointed than are the eggs of Hylotomus pileatus.
Picus, Linn. Syst. Nat. 1748. (Type, Picus martius, L.)
Picus villosus.
884 ♂
Gen. Char. Bill equal to the head, or a little longer; the lateral ridges conspicuous, starting about the middle of the base of the bill; the basal elongated oval nostrils nearest the commissure; the ridges of the culmen and gonys acute, and very nearly straight, or slightly convex towards the tip; the bill but little broader than high at the base, becoming compressed considerably before the middle. Feet much as in Campephilus; the outer posterior toe longest; the outer anterior about intermediate between it and the inner anterior; the inner posterior reaching to the base of the claw of the inner anterior. Tarsus about equal to the inner anterior toe; shorter than the two other long toes. Wings rather long, reaching to the middle of the tail, rather rounded; the fourth and fifth quills longest; the quills rather broad and rounded.
In the genus Picus, as characterized above, are contained several subdivisions more or less entitled to distinct rank, and corresponding with peculiar patterns of coloration. Thus, taking the P. villosus as the type, P. borealis has proportionally much longer primaries; the spurious primary smaller; the bill is considerably more attenuated, and even concave in its lateral outlines. The wings are still longer in P. albolarvatus. The species may be arranged as follows:—
A. Black above, and white beneath. Wings spotted with white; a black maxillary stripe.
a. Two white stripes on the side of the head, one above, and the other below, the ear-coverts, which are mostly black. First quill shorter than sixth. Tail-feathers broad and obtuse at ends, the narrowed tips of middle feathers very short.
DRYOBATES, Boie. Middle of back streaked longitudinally and continuously with white. Maxillary and auricular black stripes not confluent; the latter running into the black of the nape. Beneath white without spots. Red of head confined to a narrow nuchal band.
1. P. villosus. Outer tail-feathers immaculate white, great variation in size with latitude. Length, 7.00 to 10.00.
All the quills, with middle and greater wing-coverts, with large white spots. Hab. Eastern North America … var. villosus.
Innermost quills and some of the coverts entirely black, or unspotted with white. Remaining spots reduced in size.
(Var. jardini similar, but much smaller, 7.00, and lower parts smoky-brown.) Hab. Middle and western North America, and south to Costa Rica … var. harrisi.
2. P. pubescens. Outer tail-feather white, with transverse black bands; length about 6.25.
All the quills, with middle and greater wing-coverts, with large white spots. Hab. Eastern North America … var. pubescens.
Innermost quills and some of the coverts entirely black; remaining white spots reduced in size. Hab. Western North America … var. gairdneri.
DYCTIOPICUS, Bon. Whole back banded transversely with black and white. Beneath white, with black spots on sides. Maxillary and auricular black stripes confluent at their posterior ends, the latter not running into the nape. In the males at least half of top of head red. Length, about 6.50.
3. P. scalaris. Anterior portion of the back banded with white; lores and nasal tufts smoky brown. Black stripes on sides of the head very much narrower than the white ones, and not connected with the black of the shoulders. Male with the whole crown red.
Outer web of lateral tail-feathers barred with black to the base. White bands on back exceeding the black ones in width; red of the crown very continuous, on the forehead predominating over the black and white. (Sometimes the black at base of inner web of lateral tail-feather divided by white bars.) Hab. Southern and Eastern Mexico, and Rio Grande region of United States … var. scalaris.
Outer web of lateral tail-feather barred with black only toward end. Red of crown much broken anteriorly, and in less amount than the black and white mixed with it. White bands of the back not wider, generally much narrower than the black ones.
Bill, .90; tarsus, .70. Red of crown extending almost to the bill. Hab. Western Mexico, up to Western Arizona … var. graysoni.
Bill, 1.10; tarsus, .75. Red of crown disappearing about on a line above the eye. Hab. Cape St. Lucas … var. lucasanus.
4. P. nuttalli. Anterior portion of back not banded with white; lores and nasal tufts white. Black stripes on side of the head very much broader than the white ones, and connected by a narrow strip with the black of the shoulders. Male with only the nape and occiput red. Hab. California (only).
b. One white stripe, only, on side of head, and this occupying whole auricular region. Tail-feathers narrowed at ends, the points of the middle ones much elongated. First quill longer than sixth. Bill very small, much shorter than head.
PHRENOPICUS, Bonap. Back and wings transversely banded with black and white, and sides spotted with black, as in Dyctiopicus.
5. P. borealis. Red of male restricted to a concealed narrow line on each side of the occiput, at the junction of the white and black. Maxillary black stripe very broad and conspicuous, running back to the series of black spots on sides of breast. Three outer
tail-feathers more or less white, with a few bars of black near their ends, principally on inner webs. Hab. South Atlantic States.
B. Body entirely continuous black; head all round immaculate white. First quill shorter than sixth.
XENOPICUS, Baird. Tail and primaries as in “A,” but much more lengthened. Bill as in Dryobates, but more slender.
6. P. albolarvatus. Red of male a narrow transverse occipital crescent, between the white and the black. Basal half, or more, of primaries variegated with white, this continuous nearly to the end of outer webs; inner webs of secondaries with large white spots toward their base. Hab. Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges, Pacific Province, United States.
Subgenus DRYOBATES, Boie.
Dryobates, Boie, 1826. (Type, Picus pubescens, fide Cabanis, Mus. Hein.)
Trichopicus, Bonap. 1854.
Trichopipo, Cab. & Hein. Mus. Hein. 1863, 62.
According to Cabanis, as above cited, Dryobates, as established by Boie in 1826, had the Picus pubescens as type, although extended in 1828 to cover a much wider ground. As a subgeneric name, therefore, it must take preference of Trichopicus of Bonaparte, which, like all the allied names of this author, Cabanis rejects at any rate as hybrid and inadmissible.
The synopsis under the head of Picus will serve to distinguish the species in brief.
Picus harrisi.
The small black and white Woodpeckers of North America exhibit great variations in size and markings, and it is extremely difficult to say what is a distinct species and what a mere geographical race. In none of our birds is the difference in size between specimens from a high and a low latitude so great, and numerous nominal species have been established on this ground alone. There is also much variation with locality in the amount of white spotting on the wings, as well as the comparative width of the white and black bars in the banded species. The under parts, too, vary from pure white to smoky-brown. To these variations in what may be considered as good species is to be added the further perplexities caused by hybridism, which seems to prevail to an unusual extent among some Woodpeckers, where the area of distribution of one species is overlapped by a close ally. This, which can be most satisfactorily demonstrated in the Colaptes, is also
probably the case in the black and white species, and renders the final settlement of the questions involved very difficult.
After a careful consideration of the subject, we are not inclined to admit any species or permanent varieties of the group of four-toed small white and black Woodpeckers as North or Middle American, other than those mentioned in the preceding synopsis.
PLATE XLIX.
1. Campephilus principalis. ♂ Fla., 3869.
2. Campephilus principalis. ♀ Arkansas.?
3. Picus villosus. ♂ Pa., 884.
4. Picus villosus. ♀ Pa.
5. Picus villosus. ♂ juv. Iowa, 13172.
6. Picus pubescens. ♂ Pa., 1291.
7. Picus pubescens. ♀ Pa.
8. Picus borealis. ♂ Georgia, 1878.
Picus villosus, Linnæus.
HAIRY WOODPECKER; LARGER SAPSUCKER.
Var. canadensis.—Northern and Western regions.
? Picus leucomelas, Boddært, Tabl. Pl. Enl. 1783 (No. 345, f. 1, Gray).—Cass. P. A. N. S. 1863, 199. Dryobates leucomelas, Cab. & Hein. Mus. Hein. IV, 67. ? Picus canadensis, Gmelin, Syst. Nat. I, 1788, 437.—? Latham, Ind. Orn. I, 1790, 231.—Aud. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 188, pl. ccccxvii.—Ib. Syn. 1839, 177.—Ib. Birds America, IV, 1842, 235, pl. cclviii.—Bonap. Consp. 1850, 137.—Ib. Aten. Ital. 1854, 8. Picus villosus, Forster, Philos. Trans. LXII, 1772, 383.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 84.—Cassin, P. A. N. S. 1863, 199.—Gray, Catal. 1868, 45.—Dall & Bannister, Tr. Chicago Ac. Sc. I, 1869, 274 (Alaska).—Finsch, Abh. Nat. III, 1872, 60 (Alaska).—Samuels, 87. Picus (Dendrocopus) villosus, Sw. F.-Bor. Am. II, 1831, 305. Picus phillipsi, Aud. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 186, pl. ccccxvii.—Ib. Syn. 1839, 177.—Ib. Birds Amer. IV, 1842, 238, pl. cclix (immature, with yellow crown).—Nuttall, Man. I, (2d ed.,) 1840, 686.—Cass. P. A. N. S. 1863, 199. Picus martinæ, Aud. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 181, pl. ccccxvii.—Ib. Syn. 1839, 178.—Ib. Birds Amer. IV, 1842, 240, pl. cclx (young male, with red feathers on crown).—Cass. P. A. N. S. 1863, 199. Picus rubricapillus, Nuttall, Man. I, (2d ed.,) 1840, 685 (same as preceding). Picus septentrionalis, Nuttall, Man. I, (2d ed.,) 1840, 684.
Var. villosus.—Middle States.
Picus villosus, Linnæus, Syst. Nat. I, 1758, 175.—Vieillot, Ois. Am. Sept. II, 1807, 64, pl. cxx.—Wilson, Am. Orn. I, 1808, 150, pl. ix.—Wagler, Syst. Av. 1827, No. 22.—Aud. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 164, pl. ccccxvi.—Ib. Birds Amer. IV, 1842, 244, pl. cclxii.—Bonap. Conspectus, 1850, 137.—Sundevall, Mon. Pic. 17.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 84. Picus leucomelanus, Wagler, Syst. Av. 1827, No. 18 (young male in summer). Hairy Woodpecker, Pennant, Latham. Dryobates villosus, Cab. & Hein. Mus. Hein. IV, 2, 66.
Var. auduboni.—Southern States.
Picus auduboni, Swainson, F. B. A. 1831, 306.—Trudeau, J. A. N. Sc. Ph. VII, 1837, 404 (very young male, with crown spotted with yellow).—Aud. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 194, pl. ccccxvii.—Ib. Birds Amer. IV, 1842, 259, pl. cclxv.—Nutt. Man. I, (2d ed.,) 1840, 684.—Cass. P. A. N. S. 1863, 199. Picus villosus, Bryant, Pr. Bost. Soc. 1859 (Bahamas, winter).—Allen, B. E. Fla. 302.
Sp. Char. Above black, with a white band down the middle of the back. All the middle and larger wing-coverts and all the quills with conspicuous spots of white. Two white stripes on each side of the head; the upper scarcely confluent behind, the lower not at all so; two black stripes confluent with the black of the nape. Beneath white. Three outer tail-feathers with the exposed portions white. Length, 8.00 to 11.00; wing, 4.00 to 5.00; bill, 1.00 to 1.25. Male, with a nuchal scarlet crescent (wanting in the female) covering the white, generally continuous, but often interrupted in the middle.
Immature bird of either sex with more or less of the whole crown spotted with red or yellow, or both, sometimes the red almost continuous.
Hab. North America, to the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, and (var. canadensis) along the 49th parallel to British Columbia; Sitka; accidental in England.
In the infinite variation shown by a large number of specimens in the markings of the wings, so relied on by authors to distinguish the species of the black and white spotted North American Woodpeckers having a longitudinal band of white down the back, it will be perhaps our best plan to cut them rigorously down to two, the old-fashioned and time-honored P. villosus and pubescens; since the larger and more perfect the series, the more difficult it is to draw the line between them and their more western representatives. The size varies very greatly, and no two are alike in regard to the extent and number of the white spots. Beginning at one end of the chain, we find the white to predominate in the more eastern specimens. Thus in one (20,601) from Canada, and generally from the north, every wing-covert (except the smallest) and every quill shows externally conspicuous spots or bands of white; the middle coverts a terminal band and central spot; the greater coverts two bands on the outer web, and one more basal on the inner; and every quill is marked with a succession of spots in pairs throughout its length,—the outer web as bands reaching nearly to the shaft; the inner as more circular, larger spots. The alula alone is unspotted. This is the typical marking of the P. leucomelas or canadensis of authors. The white markings are all larger respectively than in other forms.
The next stage is seen in typical or average P. villosus for the Middle States. Here the markings are much the same, but the white is more restricted, and on the outer webs of the feathers forms rounded spots rather than bands. Some Carlisle specimens have two spots on the middle coverts as described, others lack the basal one. Another stage is exhibited by a specimen from Illinois, in which with two spots on the middle coverts there is but one terminal on the outer web of the greater, and a reduction in number of spots on the inner webs of innermost secondaries, terminal outer spots not having the corresponding inner. This form is quite prevalent westward and on the Upper Missouri, but cannot be considered as strictly geographical, since a Massachusetts and a Georgia skin agree in the same characters.
In all this variation there is little diminution in the number of spots visible externally, nor so far have we seen any from the region east of the Missouri plains that lack white spots on every covert (except the smallest ones) and every quill, and with few exceptions on both webs of the latter. It is therefore this style that we propose to consider as pure P. villosus, irrespective of variations in the size or shape of the spots, of the amount of white on tail and back, or of the bird itself. Any deviation from this may be called a variety. It has the distribution already mentioned, and extends along the Upper Missouri to British Columbia and Sitka, straggling into Washington Territory, where, however, it is found with the more typical western form,
var. harrisi. A specimen collected by Mr. Hepburn at Caribou, on the Upper Fraser, is absolutely undistinguishable from typical P. canadensis in size and markings.
We now come to the western race or variety, hardly to be called species, the P. harrisi of Audubon. Here the extreme of condition most opposed to typical villosus is shown by the entire absence of white on the exposed surface of the wing, except on the outer webs of the four or five longest primaries, where the spots are very small. (We have never seen them entirely wanting.) The white of the back, too, may be normal in amount, or else much restricted. Concealed white spots on some of the feathers will be seen on raising them. The white of tail-feathers sometimes shows black spots or blotches, especially on the inner web of the second. These features belong more especially to specimens from the coast region of Oregon and Washington.
Proceeding eastward from the Northern Pacific Coast we next find specimens showing a few white streaks on the greater coverts and next on the middle coverts. The spots on the secondaries, too, begin to show themselves; but as a general rule they do not occur on the innermost of the greater coverts and of the secondaries. This, therefore, may be considered as the limit of a variety, characterized by the absence at least of spots in these members of the wing.
With the variation in spots in the western variety we have, as already remarked, differences in amount of white on the tail and the back, as well as in the color of the belly, which is sometimes pure white, sometimes of a smoky gray; this latter variation not at all parallel with other differences or with geographical distribution, and equally observable in eastern villosus. The size, too, varies somewhat, but not to the same extent as on the Atlantic side. Here, however, we have Picus jardini of Mexico and Central America, as the small southern race, absolutely undistinguishable from dark-breasted Oregon specimens, except in size (length, 7.00; wing, 3.90; bill above, .85), and perhaps a more fulvous tinge on the under parts. The specimens before me have one or two black spots on the inner web of the next to the outer tail-feather, as in darker varieties of harrisi, but these are not symmetrical or constant in either, and are to be looked on as mere indications of the general tendency to melanism.
Habits. This common and familiar species of Woodpecker has an extended range throughout eastern North America. Specimens in the Smithsonian Institution have been collected from almost every portion of North America east of the Rocky Mountains. Wilson speaks of it as common throughout the continent from Hudson’s Bay to Carolina and Georgia. Mr. Audubon, who regarded Picus martinæ, P. phillipsi, and P. canadensis as distinct species, instead of varieties of this Woodpecker, states, in regard to its distribution, that the P. villosus is a constant resident both in the maritime and inland districts from Texas to New Hampshire, as well as in all the wooded
tracts intervening between the junction of the Missouri and Mississippi, and the northern borders of the great lake. He adds that not an individual was found by him or by his sons in Maine, where he did, however, obtain in great abundance the variety he called P. canadensis. According to Sir John Richardson it is found as far to the north as the 63d parallel. It remains all the year round in the fur countries, and is the most common species up to the fifty-sixth degree of latitude, north of which it yields in frequency to the three-toed species. Dr. Woodhouse speaks of it as common in Texas and in the Indian Territory. Although not crossing the Rocky Mountains in the United States, it reaches the Pacific Coast of British Columbia, and is found north as far as Sitka, and perhaps still farther, thus replacing the var. harrisi. It is a resident, and not a migratory, species, and wherever found it also breeds. Several specimens have been killed in England.
According to the observations of Wilson, this Woodpecker frequents the orchards and cultivated grounds, and is less wild and more domestic than most of the species. In May, with its mate, it seeks the retirement of the woods to breed, selecting a branch already hollowed, or excavating one for itself. In the former case the nest has been known to be four or five feet from the opening. When it excavates its own opening, it digs horizontally six or eight inches into the body of the tree, and then downward to about twice that distance, carrying up the chips in the bill or scraping them out with the feet. They not unfrequently breed in orchards, and have been even known to excavate their holes in the rails of old fences. The female lays five white eggs, which are usually hatched out early in June.
Mr. Audubon observed these birds, at all seasons, in almost every possible locality, from the isolated trees of large towns and cities, even to the very midst of the salt marshes about the mouth of the Mississippi. He found the excavation for the nest more frequently running obliquely than perpendicularly. In the Southern States they rear two broods in a season, the first appearing the last of May, the second usually about the first of August. In the middle and northern districts they rarely raise more than one. Those which Mr. Audubon observed to raise more than one brood in a season made use of the same excavation for both, and not unfrequently within a few yards of a house. The eggs of the first brood he found usually six in number, and of the second four. Where they have but one brood, the number varies from four to six, and in two instances he has found seven. The measure given by him is one inch in length by .69 of an inch in breadth. They are elliptical or almost equally rounded at both ends, smooth, pure white, and translucent. The young remain in the nest until well able to fly.
Mr. Audubon states that the Hairy Woodpecker becomes, during the winter months, a very common bird in all parts of the Southern States, coming to the farm-yards with the downy species to glean the grains of corn left by the cattle. At this season their visits to the corn-cribs are extremely frequent.
They may also be seen clinging to the stalks of the sugar-cane, boring them, and evidently enjoying the sweet juices of that plant.
Their flight is short and rapid, resembling that of other allied species. They are not social, never more than the members of one family being seen together. They feed chiefly on insects and their larvæ, often seizing the former on the wing. In the autumn they occasionally eat berries, seeds, and small fruit. Their notes are sharp and loud, uttered in monosyllables, at times with great frequency.
An egg of this species, taken in Roxbury, Mass., is of a pure crystal whiteness, oblong in shape, and equally rounded at either end, measuring 1.01 inches in length by .72 of an inch in breadth. Another, from Georgia, is more rounded at one end, and measures 1.02 inches in length and .75 of an inch in breadth.
Picus villosus, var. harrisi, Aud.
HARRIS’S WOODPECKER.
Picus harrisi, Aud. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 191, pl. ccccxvii.—Ib. Syn. 1839, 178.—Ib. Birds America, IV, 1842, 242, pl. cclxi (dark-bellied variety).—Nuttall, Man. I, (2d ed.,) 1840, 627.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 87.—Sundevall, Mon. 17.—Lord, Pr. R. Art. Ass. IV, 111 (nesting).—Coues, Pr. A. N. S. 1866, 52 (Oregon).—Sumichrast, Mem. Bost. Soc. I, 1869, 562 (Alpine regions of Vera Cruz).—Gray, Catal. 1868, 47.—Caban. J. 1862, 175.—Cassin, P. A. N. S. 1863, 200.—Cooper & Suckley, 159.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 375. ? Picus inornatus, Licht. (Bon. Consp.). Picus (Trichopicus) harrisi, Bp. Consp. Zyg. Aten. Ital. 1854, 8. Dryobates harrisi, Cab. & Hein. Mus. Hein. IV, 2, 68 (jardini, 69.) Picus jardini, Malh. Rev. Zoöl. Oct. 1845, 374 (Mexico).—Cab. Jour. 1862, 175. Picus hyloscopus, Cab. & Hein. Mus. Hein. IV, 2, 1863, 69 (white-bellied form).
Sp. Char. Similar to typical villosus; the innermost of the greater wing-coverts and of the secondary quills without any white spots externally; varying from this to the entire absence of exposed white on wing except on the outer web of longest primaries. Belly varying from pure white to smoky or fulvous gray, white of tail-feathers very rarely blotched with black. Average length, in north, 9.00; wing, 5.00; exposed part of culmen, 1.15.
Var. jardini much smaller. Length, 7.00; wing, 3.90; culmen, .85.
Hab. Whole of Western United States, west of the Missouri plains, extending into Mexico and Central America, where it passes into the smallest and darkest southern extreme, known as P. jardini. Localities: West Arizona (Coues, P. A. N. S. 1866, 52); Vera Cruz, Alpine regions (Sumichrast, M. Bost. Soc. I, 1869, 562).
In the preceding article we have given some general remarks on Harris’s Woodpecker, and shown why we cannot consider it a well-defined species. If the specimens from the extreme west were constant in themselves, and the variations, as with Colaptes hybridus, occurred along the line of contact with villosus, we might refer to hybrids many of the intermediate forms; but as scarcely any two are alike, even on the Pacific coast, such a view is inadmissible. As, however, in the extreme limits of variation, there is yet a
difference from eastern specimens, and this is characteristic of a large area of country, it may be proper to recognize the form by the name harrisi.
The P. jardini appears to be nothing more than the most southern race of this dark western form of P. villosus, and shows the smallest, as well as the darkest, extreme to which the species attains. In Southern Mexico typical P. harrisi and this form grade insensibly together. The minimum of size and maximum darkness of colors are reached in Costa Rica.
Habits. This variety was first described by Mr. Audubon from specimens obtained by Mr. Townsend on the Columbia River. No information was obtained in regard to its habits, which, it may be presumed, do not vary very essentially from those of the more familiar pubescens and villosus. In regard to its geographical distribution, it has been found in more or less abundance from Nebraska to the Pacific, and from Mexico to British America. It is known to occur in Texas on the Rio Grande, in New Mexico, in Arizona, Nebraska, California, Oregon, and Washington Territory.
This indicates a very general distribution throughout Western North America from the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, and from New Mexico and Texas probably to the limits of the forests in the northwest. It seems to take the place of the P. villosus in the far west. Dr. Heermann, in his notes on the birds of California (Journal of Philadelphia Academy, II, 270), says it is not a common bird, although it is occasionally met with in that State. Dr. Gambel, however, states that it occupies, on the western coast, the same place that the P. villosus does on the Atlantic, but seems to have a greater partiality for the pine woods. Dr. Woodhouse did not meet with it in the expedition to the Zuñi and Colorado. Dr. Newberry speaks of it (U. S. P. B. R. Survey, VI,—Zoölogy, p. 89) as not uncommon in the wooded districts of Northern California and Oregon. Dr. Kennerly, in his report on the birds obtained by Lieutenant Whipple’s party, states that Harris’s Woodpecker was found along the Little Colorado River in the month of December, wherever the cottonwood trees grew (U. S. P. R. R. Survey, X, Pt. VI, 21). It is not mentioned by Dr. Heermann in his Report on the birds of Lieutenant Parke’s explorations near the 32d. parallel. The same writer, in his Report on the birds of Lieutenant Williamson’s party, speaks of this bird as having been occasionally observed during the survey, but as a somewhat rare species, though procured in Northern California and at Tejon Pass. Dr. Suckley speaks of it as quite abundant at Fort Dalles, where he found it among the true pines, and at Fort Steilacoom, among the firs (D. douglasi), and as a winter resident in both localities (Natural History of Washington Territory, Zoölogy, p. 159). Dr. Cooper states that Harris’s Woodpecker is the most abundant species in Washington Territory, being found on both sides of the Cascade Mountains, frequenting the lower parts of the great coniferous trees. He found it a constant resident in May, burrowing out a nest in a dead tree, sometimes only four feet from the ground. He describes its cries and habits as so exactly like those of the
larger Sapsucker (P. villosus) of the Atlantic States, that, were there not constant and unchangeable differences in plumage, it would be taken for the same species. He furnishes no description of the eggs, but it is quite probable that there is no appreciable difference between them and those of the Picus villosus.
Dr. Coues mentions this species as one of the most common and characteristic birds in the vicinity of Fort Whipple. Dr. Heermann speaks of its having clear trumpet-like notes that betray its locality and render it an easy bird to shoot.
In California Dr. Cooper found this chiefly a northern bird, frequenting the forests of all kinds up to the summits of the Sierra Nevada, and also resident as far south as Santa Barbara, descending, in winter, to the eastern branches of the Colorado and to Tejon Pass. He found it more common in the higher Coast Range near Santa Cruz, and still more so toward the Columbia River. Its cry, he adds, is louder than that of most of the small Woodpeckers, and it is rather shy, especially when it imagines itself pursued. It feeds at times on fruits and berries, and sometimes it visits gardens. It is known as one of the “Sapsuckers,” but does more good than harm in the orchard, destroying both insects and their larvæ.
Mr. John K. Lord states that this Woodpecker is by far the most abundant species in the district through which his party passed. He found it on Vancouver’s Island, and along the entire course of the boundary-line, south through Oregon and California, and north to Fort Simpson. A few remained at Colville during the winter, but the greater number retired to the coast and returned in April and May. In the latter month they mate, and bore out a hole in a dead tree. They use no lining for the nest, but lay the eggs on the bare wood. Their favorite haunts are the stumps of trees growing round swamps or prairie-land.
This Woodpecker was met with by Mr. Ridgway in all wooded portions of the Great Basin, but was most abundant among the pines on the mountains. In all respects, it is a perfect counterpart of the P. villosus of the east.
Picus pubescens, Linn.
DOWNY WOODPECKER; LESSER SAPSUCKER.
Picus pubescens, Linn. Syst. Nat. I, 1766, 15.—Vieillot, Ois. Am. Sept. II, 1807, 65, pl. cxxi.—Wilson, Am. Orn. I, 1808, 153, pl. ix.—Wagler, Syst. Avium, 1827, No. 23.—Aud. Orn. Biog. II, 1834, 81; V, 539, pl. cxii.—Ib. Birds Am. IV, 1842, 249, pl. cclxiii.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 89.—Sundevall, Mon. Pic. 17.—Malb. Mon. Pic. I, 119, pl. xxix.—Cassin, Pr. 1863, 20.—Scl. Cat. 1862, 334.—Gray, Cat. 1868, 44.—Dall & Bannister, Tr. Chicago Ac. I, 1869, 274 (Alaska).—Finsch, Abh. Nat. III, 1872, 60 (Alaska).—Samuels, 89.—Allen, B. E. Fla. 304. Picus (Dendrocopus) pubescens, Sw. F. B. A. II, 1831, 307. Picus (Trichopicus) pubescens, Bonap. Consp. Zyg. Ateneo Italiano, 1854, 8. ? Picus medianus, Sw. F. B. A. II, 1831, 308. Picus meridionalis, Sw. F. B. A. II, 1831, 308 (small southern race). Picus leconti, Jones, Ann. N. Y. Lyc. IV, 1848, 489, pl. xviii (Georgia; three-toed specimen, first toe wanting. Type of Tridactylia, Bp.) Dryobates pubescens, Cab. & Hein. Mus. Hein. 1863, 63.
Sp. Char. A miniature of P. villosus. Above black, with a white band down the back. Two white stripes on the side of the head; the lower of opposite sides always separated behind, the upper sometimes confluent on the nape. Two stripes of black on the side of the head, the lower not running into the forehead. Beneath white; all the middle and greater coverts and all the quills with white spots, the larger coverts with two series each; tertiaries or inner secondaries all banded with white. Two outer tail-feathers white, with two bands of black at end; third white at tip and externally, crissum sometimes spotted with black. Length, about 6.25; wing, 3.75. Male with red, terminating the white feathers on the nape. Young with whole top of head red.
Hab. Eastern United States, towards the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, into British Columbia and the Humboldt Mountains, and north to the limits of the woods; along whole Yukon River; perhaps to the Pacific, north of the 49th parallel; Kodiak. Localities: San Antonio, Texas (Dresser, Ibis, 1865, 468). Accidental in England.
The remarks already made on the variation of Picus villosus apply equally well here; all the differences in size and markings with locality being almost exactly reproduced. The western variety, P. gairdneri, is equally uncertain in characters as P. harrisi, and as little entitled to specific distinction. As in the previous instance, we shall call typical pubescens those specimens in which all the middle and greater coverts and all the quills including the innermost secondaries are spotted with white, while those in which any of these feathers, whether all the coverts, as in Oregon birds, or only a few of them, are unspotted, may be called var. gairdneri.
Of typical pubescens in the Eastern States there are minor variations, but not of much account. Thus the forehead itself, apart from the white nasal tufts, is sometimes white, connecting with the white superciliary stripe; more frequently, however, the whole forehead is black. Northern specimens are larger and have larger white spots, and not unfrequently the black cheek-stripe is invaded anteriorly by white, which, however, is appreciable at the base of the feathers. The black bars on the tail are much restricted in specimens from the Yukon. Southern specimens are smaller and darker, with smaller spots on the wings.
In all the changes of the two species, there is no difficulty in distinguishing P. pubescens from P. villosus by the black bars on outer tail-feathers of the former, and their absence in the latter. The crissum of pubescens is sometimes somewhat spotted with blackish. The white markings on the coverts are larger in proportion, and there are almost always two series of white spots on the greater coverts, as in northern varieties of villosus, not one, as in most of those from the Middle States.
Habits. This species, like the Hairy Woodpecker, is a resident rather than a migratory species, and breeds wherever it is met with. It also seems to have very nearly the same geographical distribution with that species. Dr. Woodhouse found it common throughout the Indian Territory, Texas, and New Mexico. It does not, however, appear to have been collected by any of the parties engaged in the Pacific Railroad surveys, nor by that upon the survey of the Mexican boundary. Of seventeen specimens given by
Professor Baird in 1858 as in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution, six are from Pennsylvania, two from Massachusetts, two from Missouri, one from Bonhomme Island in Nebraska, and the rest from Fort Leavenworth, Salt Creek, Fort Riley, and Platte River in Kansas. It is quite common throughout the coast region of Alaska, exclusive of the Aleutians, and throughout the entire valley of the Yukon. Wilson makes no mention of its geographical distribution, probably because he found it everywhere common, to the extent of his own investigations. Audubon speaks of it as very generally distributed from the lower parts of Louisiana to Labrador, and as far westward as he travelled.
Sir John Richardson states that this species is a constant inhabitant of the fur countries up to the 58th parallel. It seeks its food principally on the maple, elm, and ash, and, north of latitude 54°, where these trees are not found, on the aspen and birch.
According to Wilson, these birds select a suitable place for the excavation of their nest, about the middle of May. An apple, pear, or cherry tree, often in the near neighborhood of a farm-house, is generally fixed upon for this purpose. The work of excavation is begun by the male, who cuts a hole in the solid wood as circular as if described with a pair of compasses. He is occasionally relieved by the female, both parties working with the most indefatigable diligence. The direction of the hole, when made in the body of the tree, is downward by an angle of forty degrees for the distance of six or eight inches, and then directly downward for ten or twelve more. Within, the excavation is roomy, capacious, and as smooth as if polished by the hand of the most finished workman. The entrance is, however, left only just large enough to admit the bodies of the birds. During their labor they even take the pains to carry their chips to a distance, to prevent suspicion. This operation sometimes occupies the chief part of a week. The eggs are generally six in number, pure white, and laid on the smooth bottom of the cavity. The male supplies the female with food while she is sitting. The young generally leave the nest about the last of June.
The same writer also gives an interesting account of the impudent coolness of the House Wren, who, coveting the well-built home of this Woodpecker, and unable to excavate such an apartment for itself, waits until the poor Woodpeckers have completed their work, and then attacks them with violence and drives them off from the nest they have been at so much pains to prepare. He states that he saw a striking example of this, where the Woodpeckers, after commencing in a cherry-tree, within a few yards of the house, and having made considerable progress, were turned out by the Wren. They began again on a pear-tree in the garden, a few yards off, when, after digging out a most complete apartment, and laying one egg, they were once more assaulted by the same impertinent intruder, and finally forced to abandon the place.
Mr. Audubon gives substantially the same account of their nesting, only he assigns an earlier period, the middle of April, for its commencement, and
describes the entrance to the excavation as often being at right angles to the trunk for a few inches before it descends. He states that in the Southern and Middle States two broods are raised in a season, farther north seldom more than one.
Mr. C. S. Paine, of Randolph, Vt., speaks of this Woodpecker as being one of the most common and familiar, in Vermont, of the family. They are to be met with in his neighborhood at all seasons of the year, though he is of the opinion that many of them go south to spend the winter. They deposit their eggs about the first of June in the very snug little excavations they prepare. The male bird will sometimes prepare a separate apartment for himself, apart from his mate. Mr. Paine has taken the male in such a hole by himself, and without any nest or eggs, evidently only prepared for shelter.
This Woodpecker has a single note or cry, sounding like chink, which it frequently repeats. When it flies, and often when it alights, this cry is more shrill and prolonged. They are very industrious, and are constantly employed in search of insects, chiefly in orchards and the more open groves. The orchard is its favorite resort, and it is particularly fond of boring the bark of apple-trees for insects. This fact, and the erroneous impression that it taps the trees for the sap, has given to these birds the common name of Sapsuckers, and has caused an unjust prejudice against them. So far from doing any injury to the trees, they are of great and unmixed benefit. Wilson, who was at great pains to investigate the matter, declares that he invariably found that those trees that were thus marked by the Woodpecker were uniformly the most thriving and the most productive. “Here, then,” adds Wilson, “is a whole species—I may say genus—of birds, which Providence seems to have formed for the protection of our fruit and forest trees from the ravages of vermin, which every day destroy millions of those noxious insects that would otherwise blast the hopes of the husbandman, and even promote the fertility of the tree, and in return are proscribed by those who ought to have been their protectors.”
The egg of this species is nearly spherical, pure white, and measures .83 by .72 of an inch.
Picus pubescens, var. gairdneri, Aud.
GAIRDNER’S WOODPECKER.
Picus gairdneri, Aud. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 317.—Ib. Syn. 1839, 180.—Ib. Birds Amer. IV, 1842, 252 (not figured).—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 91, pl. lxxxv, f. 2, 3.—Sundevall, Consp. 1866, 17.—Gray, Cat. 1868, 44.—Cooper & Suckley, 159.—Sclater, Catal. 1862, 334.—Malh. Monog. Picidæ, I, 123.—Cass. P. A. N. S. 1863, 201.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 377.—Lord, Pr. R. Art. Inst. IV, 1864, 111. Picus meridionalis, Nutt. Man. I, (2d ed.,) 1840, 690 (not of Swainson).—Gambel, J. A. N. Sc. I, 1847, 55, 105. Picus turati, Malherbe, Mon. Pic. I, 125, tab. 29 (small race, 5.50, from Monterey, Cal., nearest pubescens). Dryobates turati, Cab. & Hein. Mus. Hein. IV, 2, 1863, 65. Dryobates homorus, Cab. & Hein. Mus. Hein. IV, 2, 1863, 65 (larger, more spotted style).
Sp. Char. Similar to pubescens in size and markings, but with less white on the wings. Varies from entire absence of exposed white spots on the middle and greater wing-coverts and innermost secondaries, with small spots on the quills, to spots on most of their feathers, but absent on some, and the spots generally larger.
Hab. Pacific coast of United States to Rocky Mountains. Darkest and with least white in Western Oregon and Washington.
In the preceding article we have given the comparative characters of this form, which we can only consider as a variety, and not very permanent or strongly marked at that.
As in pubescens, this race varies much in the color of the under parts, which are sometimes pure white, sometimes smoky-brown. It is suggested that this is partly due to a soiling derived from inhabiting charred trees. It is, at any rate, of no specific value.
Habits. Gairdner’s Woodpecker is the western representative and counterpart of the Downy Woodpecker of the east, resembling it in size and general habits, and only differing from it in certain exceptional characteristics already mentioned. It is found throughout western North America, probably from Mexico to the British Possessions, and from the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific.
Dr. Cooper met with it in California, chiefly in the northern parts of the State, but did not observe any south of the Santa Clara Valley. Dr. Coues saw none in Arizona, or possibly a single specimen not positively ascertained.
Dr. Cooper found one of its nests near Santa Clara, on the 24th of May, containing young. It had been burrowed in a small and partly rotten tree, and was about five feet from the ground. From the fact that they were found breeding so far south he infers that among the mountains they probably occur much farther to the south, as do most other northern birds. He found them frequenting chiefly the smaller trees in the vicinity of the evergreen woods, where they were to be seen at all seasons industriously tapping the bark to obtain insects.
Dr. Newberry mentions finding them very common in Oregon, and also in Northern California. In Washington Territory, Dr. Suckley found them extremely common on the Lower Columbia, especially among the willow-trees lining its banks. They were resident throughout the winter, and in these situations were very abundant. In January, 1856, he found them so abundant among the willows growing on the islands in the delta of the Willamette, that he readily obtained eight specimens in the space of an hour. At that season they were very unwary, giving little heed to the presence of man, not even allowing the near discharge of a gun to interfere with their busy search for food.
Dr. Heermann speaks of it as neither common nor especially rare. He obtained several specimens among the mountains of Northern California.
Mr. Lord met with these Woodpeckers abundantly in the Northwestern
Boundary Survey. They differed slightly in their habits from the P. harrisi, generally hunting for insects on the maples, alders, and stunted oaks, rather than on the pine-trees. Specimens were taken on Vancouver Island, Sumass Prairie, Colville, and the west slope of the Rocky Mountains at an altitude of seven thousand feet above the sea-level.
Mr. Ridgway found this Woodpecker to be unaccountably rare in the Sierra Nevada and all portions of the Great Basin, as well as in the Wahsatch and Uintah Mountains, even in places where the P. harrisi was at all times abundant. Indeed, he only met with it on two or three occasions, in the fall: first in the Upper Humboldt Valley, in September, where it was rare in the thickets along the streams; and again in the Wahsatch Mountains, where but a single brood of young was met with in August.
An egg of this species from Oregon, obtained by Mr. Ricksecker, is larger than that of the pubescens, but similar in shape, being very nearly spherical. It measures .96 of an inch in length by .85 in breadth.
Subgenus DYCTIOPICUS, Bonap.
Dyctiopicus, Bonap. Ateneo Ital. 1854, 8. (Type, Picus scalaris, Wagler.)
Dyctiopipo, Cabanis & Hein. Mus. Hein. IV, 2, 1863, 74. (Same type.)
Char. Small species, banded above transversely with black or brown and white.
Of this group there are two sections,—one with the central tail-feathers entirely black, from Mexico and the United States (three species); the other with their feathers like the lateral black, banded or spotted with white (three species from southern South America). The northern section is characterized as follows:—
Common Characters. All the larger coverts and quills with white spots becoming transverse bands on innermost secondaries. Cheeks black with a supra-orbital and a malar stripe of white. Back banded alternately with black and white, but not on upper tail-coverts, nor four central tail-feathers. Beneath whitish, sides with elongated black spots; flanks and crissum transversely barred. Tail-feathers, except as mentioned, with spots or transverse bars of black. Head of male with red patch above (restricted in nuttalli), each feather with a white spot below the red. Female without red.
The characters of the species scalaris, with its varieties, and nuttalli, will be found under Picus.
LADDER-BACKED WOODPECKER.
Picus scalaris, Wagler, Isis, 1829, V, 511 (Mexico).—Bonap. Consp. 1850, 138.—Scl. P. Z. S. 1856, 307.—Sund. Consp. 18.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 94, pl. xli, f. 1.—Ib. Rep. Mex. Bound. II, 4, pl. iii.—Scl. Cat. 1862, 333.—Cass. P. A. N. S. 1863, 195.—Gray, Cat. 1868, 48.—Heerm. X, c, p. 18.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 379. Picus (Dyctiopicus) scalaris, Bon. Consp. Zygod. Aten. Ital. 1854, 8. Dyctiopipo scalaris, Cab. & Hein. Mus. 74. Picus gracilis, Less. Rev. Zoöl. 1839, 90 (Mexico). Picus parvus, Cabot, Boston Jour. N. H. V, 1845, 90 (Sisal, Yucatan). Picus orizabæ, Cassin, Pr. A. N. S. 1863, 196 (Orizaba). Picus bogotus, Cassin, Pr. A. N. S. 1863, 196; Jour. A. N. S. V, 1863, 460, pl. lii, f. 1 (Mex.). Picus bairdi (Scl. MSS.), Malherbe, Mon. Pic. I, 118, t. xxvii, f. 7, 8.—Scl. Cat. 333, (?) P. Z. S. 64, 177 (city of Mex.).—Cab. & Hein. Mus. Hein. IV, 2, 76.—Cassin, Pr. A. N. S. 1863, 196.—Coues, Pr. A. N. S. 1866, 52 (perhaps var. graysoni).—Dresser, Ibis, 1865, 468. Hab. Texas and New Mexico, to Arizona; south through Eastern Mexico to Yucatan. Picus scalaris, var. graysoni, Baird, MSS. Hab. Western Arizona; Western Mexico and Tres Marias.
Sp. Char. Back banded transversely with black and white from nape to rump (not upper tail-coverts). Quills and coverts with spots of white; forming bands on the secondaries. Two white stripes on sides of head. Top of head red, spotted with white. Nasal tufts brown. Beneath brownish-white, with black spots on sides, becoming bands behind. Outer tail-feathers more or less banded. Length, about 6.50; wing, 3.50 to 4.50; tail, about 2.50.
Hab. Guatemala, Mexico, and adjacent southern parts of United States. Localities: Xalapa (Scl. P. Z. S. 1859, 367); Cordova (Scl. 1856, 357); Guatemala (Scl. Ibis, I, 136); Orizaba (Scl. Cat. 333); S. E. Texas (Dresser, Ibis, 1865, 468, breeds); W. Arizona (Coues, P. A. N. S. 1866, 52); Yucatan (Lawr. Ann. N. Y. Lyc. IX, 205).
In the above diagnosis we have endeavored to express the average of characters belonging to a Woodpecker to which many names, based on trifling geographical variations, have been assigned, but which legitimately can be only considered as one species. This is among the smallest of the North American Woodpeckers, and in all its variations the wings are long, reaching as far as the short feathers of the tail. The upper parts generally are black, on the back, rump, and exposed feathers of the wings banded transversely with white, the black bands rather the narrower; the quills and larger coverts spotted with the same on both webs, becoming bands on the innermost secondaries. The upper tail-coverts and two inner tail-feathers on either side are black. The white bands of the back extend all the way up to the neck, without any interscapular interruption. The under parts are of a pale smoky brownish-white, almost with a lilac tinge; on the sides of the breast and belly are a few scattered small but elongated spots. The posterior parts of the sides under the wing and the under tail-coverts are obscurely banded transversely with black. The top of the head, extending from a narrow sooty frontlet at the base of the bill to a short, broad nuchal crest, is crimson in the male, each feather with a white spot between the
crimson and the dark brown base of the feathers. The brown nasal tuft is scarcely different from the feathers of the forehead.
In a large series of specimens of this species, from a wide area of distribution, considerable differences are appreciable in size, but fewer in coloration than might be expected. Yucatan birds are the least (Picus parvus, Cabot; vagatus, Cassin), the wing measuring 3.30 inches. Those from Southern Mexico are but little larger (wing, 3.60). In Northern Mexico the wing is nearly 4 inches; in New Mexico it is 4.30. The markings vary but little. The black and white bands on the back are about of equal width, but sometimes one, sometimes the other, appears the larger; the more eastern have, perhaps, the most white. The pattern on the tail is quite constant. Thus, assuming the three outer feathers to be white, banded with black, the outermost may be said to have seven transverse bars of black, of which the terminal four (sometimes five) are distinct and perfect, the basal three (or two) confluent into one on the inner web (the extreme base of the feather white). The next feather has, perhaps, the same number of dark bands, but here only two (sometimes three) are continuous and complete; the innermost united together, the outer showing as scallops. The third feather has no continuous bands (or only one), all the inner portions being fused; the outer mere scallops, sometimes an oblique edging; generally, however, the interspaces of the dark bands are more or less distinctly traceable through their dusky suffusion, especially on the inner web of the outer feather. The number of free bands thus varies slightly, but the general pattern is the same. This condition prevails in nearly all the specimens before us from Yucatan and Mexico (in only one specimen from Arizona, and one or two from Texas), and is probably the typical scalaris of Wagler.
In specimens from the Rio Grande and across to Arizona the seven bands of the outer feather are frequently continuous and complete on both webs to the base, a slight suffusion only indicating the tendency to union in the inner web. The other feathers are much as described, except that the white interspaces of the black scallops penetrate deeper towards the shaft. This is perhaps the race to which the name of P. bairdi has been applied. We do not find, however, any decided reduction in the amount of red on the anterior portion of the head, as stated for this species (perhaps it is less continuous towards the front), except in immature birds; young females possibly losing the immature red of the crown, as with typical scalaris.
A third type of tail-marking is seen in specimens from the Pacific coast, and from the Tres Marias especially; also in some skins from Southwestern Arizona. Here the extreme forehead is black, with white spots; the red of the crown not so continuous anteriorly even as in the last-mentioned race. The general pattern of tail is as described, and the bars on the inner webs are also confluent towards the base, but we have only two or three transverse bars at the end of the outer feathers; the rest of outer web entirely white, this color also invading the inner. The second feather is similarly
marked, sometimes with only one spot on outer web; the third has the black scallops restricted. This may be called var. graysoni, as most specimens in the Smithsonian collection were furnished by Colonel Grayson. The size is equal to the largest typical scalaris.
We next come to the Cape St. Lucas bird, described by Mr. Xantus as P. lucasanus. Here the bill and feet become disproportionally larger and more robust than in any described; the black bands of the back larger than the white, perhaps fewer in number. The continuous red of the head also appears restricted to a stripe above and behind the eye and on the occiput, although there are some scattered feathers as far forward as above the eyes. The specimens are, however, not in very good plumage, and this marking cannot be very well defined; the red may really be as continuous forward as in the last variety. The nasal tufts are brown, as in the typical scalaris. The outer three tail-feathers in most specimens show still more white, with one or two indistinct terminal bands only on the outer two; one or two additional spots, especially on inner web, and the sub-basal patch of inner web greatly reduced. Specimens vary here in this respect, as in other races of scalaris, but the average is as described.
Notwithstanding the decided difference between typical scalaris and lucasanus, the discovery of the variety graysoni makes it possible to consider both as extremes of one species. To nuttalli, however, it is but one step farther; a restriction of the red to the posterior half of the top of head, the white instead of brown nasal feathers, and the whiter under parts being the only positive characters. The markings of the tail are almost identical with those of lucasanus. The anterior portion of the back is, however, not banded, as in the several varieties described. For this reason it may therefore be questioned whether, if lucasanus and scalaris are one, nuttalli should not belong to the same series.
We thus find that the amount of black on the tail is greatest in Southern and Southeastern Mexican specimens, and farther north it begins to diminish; in Western Mexico it is still more reduced, while at Cape St. Lucas the white is as great in amount as in the Upper Californian P. nuttalli.
The characters given above for the different varieties or races of Picus scalaris, as far as they relate to the tail, may be expressed in the following table, illustrated by the accompanying diagram, showing the markings of outer tail-feather in scalaris and nuttalli.
Outer tail-feathers with seven distinct transverse black bands.
These bands confluent on inner web near the base … var. scalaris.
Bands distinct on inner web … var. bairdi.
Bands on outer tail-feather distinct on outer webs at end only, obsolete or wanting towards base (as in nuttalli).
Tarsus, .68. Bill and legs as in average … var. graysoni.
Tarsus, .78. Bill and legs very stout … var. lucasanus.
| Outermost tail-feather of Picus scalaris. 6105 | Outermost tail-feather of Picus nuttalli. 4482 |
Habits. This species belongs to our southern and southwestern fauna, entering our borders from Mexico, occurring from the valley of the Rio Grande to Southeastern California, and the slopes of the Rocky Mountains south of the 35th parallel. It is found throughout Mexico to Yucatan and Guatemala.
Dr. Samuel Cabot obtained a single specimen of this bird at Yucatan, which he described under the name of P. parvus, in the Boston Journal of Natural History, V, p. 92. It was procured early in December, 1841, in the neighborhood of Ticul, Yucatan. Dr. Kennerly considered it a not uncommon species in the vicinity of Boca Grande; especially wherever there were large trees. The same naturalist, in his Report on the birds of Lieutenant Whipple’s expedition, states that he very often saw this bird near San Antonio, Texas, as well as during the march several hundred miles west of that place, but that, after leaving the Rio Grande, he did not meet with it until he reached the head-waters of Bill Williams Fork. From thence to the Great Colorado River he saw it frequently, wherever there was any timber; but it was very shy, alighting on the tops of the leafless cotton-wood trees, and keeping a vigilant lookout.
Dr. Heermann, in his Report on the birds of Lieutenant J. G. Parke’s expedition, states that he observed this Woodpecker in the southernmost portion of California, and found it more and more abundant as he advanced towards Texas, where it was quite common. The same naturalist, in his Report on the birds of Lieutenant Williamson’s expedition, remarks that he procured this bird first at Vallicita, but found it abounding in the woods about Fort Yuma. He considered the species as new to the California fauna, though frequently seen in Texas, several of the expeditions having collected it.
Dr. Woodhouse, in his Report on the birds of Sitgreaves’s expedition to the Zuñi and the Colorado speaks of finding this beautiful little Woodpecker abundant in Texas, east of the Pecos River. During his stay in San Antonio and its vicinity, he became quite familiar with it. It was to be seen, at all times, flying from tree to tree, and lighting on the trunk of the mesquites (Algarobia), closely searching for its insect-food. In its habits and notes, he states, it much resembles the common Hairy Woodpecker. Dr. Woodhouse elsewhere remarks that he did not meet with this bird west of the Rio San Pedro, in Texas. In regard to its breeding-habits, so far as I am aware, they are inferred rather than known. It is quite probable they are not unlike those of the Picus pubescens, which it so closely resembles. The eggs in the collection of the Smithsonian were obtained with the collections
of the late Dr. Berlandier of Matamoras, in the province of Tamaulipas, Mexico.
Dr. Cooper states that this Woodpecker is abundant in the Colorado Valley, and that they are sometimes seen on the bushes covering the neighboring mountains. In habits he regards them the exact counterpart of P. nuttalli, to which they are allied.
Mr. Dresser found them resident and very common throughout all Texas and Northeastern Mexico. It breeds abundantly about San Antonio, boring into any tree it finds most suitable for its purposes.
Dr. Coues regards Fort Whipple as about the northern limit of this species in Arizona. It is not very common, is only a summer resident, and breeds sparingly there. Farther south, throughout the Territory, and in the Colorado Valley, he found it abundant. It does not cross the Colorado Desert into California, and is there replaced by P. nuttalli. It extends south into Central America. A bird shot by Dr. Coues, June 5, appeared to be incubating; young birds were taken just fledged July 10. The nest was in the top of a live-oak tree. Malherbe, who speaks of this Woodpecker as exclusively Mexican, states that he has been informed that it is abundant in that country, where it may be seen at all times, climbing over the trunks and branches of trees. It is said to be very familiar and unwary, living commonly in gardens and orchards through the greater part of the year, and many of them nesting there, though in regard to their manner of nesting he has no information.
The egg of this Woodpecker in shape is most similar to the P. villosus, being of an oblong-oval. It is larger than the pubescens, and not of so clear a white color. It measures exactly one inch in length by .75 of an inch in breadth.
Picus scalaris, var. lucasanus, Xantus.
THE CAPE WOODPECKER.
Picus lucasanus, Xantus, Pr. A. N. S. 1859, 298, 302.—Malherbe, Mon. Picidæ, I, 166.—Cassin, Pr. A. N. S. 1863, 195.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 381.
Sp. Char. General appearance that of Picus nuttalli and scalaris. Bill stout, as long as or longer than the head. Above black, banded transversely with white on the back and scapulars to the nape, the white narrower band, the rump and inner tail-feathers entirely black; quills with a row of white spots on each web; the outer square, the inner rounded, these spots on the tertials becoming transversely quadrangular. Beneath brownish-white, with rounded black spots on the sides of the breast, passing behind on the flanks and under tail-coverts into transverse bars. Greater inner wing-coverts transversely barred. Outer two tail-feathers white, with one, sometimes two terminal bars, next to which are one or two bars on the inner web only; third feather black, the outer web mostly white, with traces of a terminal black bar; sometimes there is a greater predominance of black on the inner web. Two white stripes on side of head, one starting above, the other below the eye, with a tendency to meet behind and form a whitish
collar on the nape. Male with the entire top of the head streaked with red, becoming more conspicuous behind; each red streak with a white spot at base. Feathers covering the nostrils smoky-brown. Length, 7.15; extent, 12.15; wing, 4.00; bill above, 1.00; middle toe and claw, .80; tarsus, .76.
Hab. Cape St. Lucas.
Of the distinctness of this bird as a species from P. nuttalli and scalaris I had at one time no doubt; but the discovery that the otherwise typical scalaris from Mazatlan and Western Mexico generally have the same markings on the tail has induced me to consider it as a kind of connecting link. I have, however, thought it best to give a detailed description for comparison. Of about the same size with nuttalli, the bill and feet are much larger. The legs, indeed, are nearly, if not quite, as large as those of male P. villosus from Pennsylvania; the bill, however, is somewhat less. The relations to P. scalaris are seen in the dorsal bands extending to the nape, the smoky-brown feathers of the nostrils, the red on the whole top of head (scattering anteriorly), the brownish shade beneath, the width of the white cheek-bands, etc. On the other hand, it has the black bands of the back rather wider than the white, as in nuttalli, and the white outer tail-feathers even less banded with black. The two outer are entirely white, with one terminal black bar; one or two spots on the outer web; and two or three bands on the inner, with a sub-basal patch on the inner web, even smaller than in nuttalli. It is rarely that even two continuous transverse bands can be seen to cross both webs of the tail. The bill and feet are much larger.
The following measurements taken from the largest specimens before us of Dyctiopicus, and one of P. villosus, will illustrate what has been said of the size of bill and feet of P. lucasanus.
| P. villosus. | P. lucasanus. | P. nuttalli. | P. scalaris. | |
| 884 ♂ | ♂ 12939 | ♂ 4482 | ♂ 6105 | |
| Bill from forehead, | 1.26 | 1.10 | .90 | .99 |
| Tarsus, | .76 | .76 | .70 | .68 |
| Middle toe and claw, | .87 | .84 | .75 | .65 |
| Claw alone, | .39 | .34 | .32 | .31 |
| Outer hind toe and claw, | .95 | .84 | .79 | .80 |
| Claw alone, | .40 | .32 | .31 | .31 |
Habits. Nothing distinctive is known of the habits of this race.
NUTTALL’S WOODPECKER.
Picus nuttalli, Gambel, Pr. A. N. Sc. I, April, 1843, 259 (Los Angeles, Cal.).—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 93.—Sundevall, Consp. Pic. 19.—Malh. Mon. Pic. I, 100.—Cassin, P. A. N. S. 1863, 195.—Gray, Cat. 1868, 50.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 378. Picus scalaris, (Wagler) Gambel, J. A. N. Sc. Ph. 2d ser. I, Dec. 1847, 55, pl. ix, f. 2, 3 (not of Wagler). Picus wilsoni, Malherbe, Rev. Zoöl. 1849, 529.—Bonap. Consp. 1850, 138. Picus (Trichopicus) wilsoni, Bonap. Consp. Zyg. Aten. Ital. 1854, 8.
Sp. Char. Back black, banded transversely with white, but not on upper tail-coverts, nor as far forward as the neck. Greater and middle coverts and quills with spots or bands of white. Crown black, with white spots, sometimes wanting. On the nape a patch of white, behind this unbanded black. Occiput and nape crimson in the male. Tufts of feathers at the base of the bill white. Sides of the head black, with two white stripes, one above the eye and passing down on the side of the neck, the other below and cut off behind by black. Under parts smoky yellowish-white, spotted on the sides of the breast, and banded on flank and crissum with black. Predominant character of the outer tail-feather white, with two or three interrupted bands towards end; none at base. Length, about 7.00; wing, 4.50. Female with the top of the head uniform black, or sometimes spotted with white.
Hab. Coast region of California.
Third, fourth, and fifth quills nearly equal and longest; second intermediate between the seventh and eighth. General color above black, barred transversely with white on the back, rump, and flanks; the upper surface of tail and tail-coverts, and a broad patch on the upper part of the back about half an inch long, pure black. The white bands measure about .12 of an inch, the black about twice as much. The top of the head is black, each feather with a short streak of white; on the extreme occiput and the nape is a transverse patch of crimson, each feather having a white spot just below the crimson. The crimson patch is usually as far from the base of the bill above as this is from its point. The sides of the head may be described as black; a white stripe commences on the upper edge of the eye, and, passing backwards, margins the crimson, and extends on down the side of the neck to a patch of white, apparently connected with its fellow on the opposite side by white spots. Another narrow white stripe commences at the nostrils, (the bristles of which are whitish,) and passes as far as the occiput, where it ceases in the middle of the black of the cheeks. There are thus two white streaks on the side of the head bordering a black one passing through the eye. The under parts generally are white, with a dirty yellow tinge. The sides of the breast and body are faintly streaked with black; the flanks barred with the same. The under coverts are barred with black.
The three outer tail-feathers are yellowish-white, with two or three interrupted bars of black on the posterior or terminal fourth, and a concealed patch of black on the inner web near the end. Only the terminal band is
continuous across, sometimes the others; always interrupted along the shaft, and even reduced to rounded spots of black on one or both webs. No distinct bands are visible on raising the crissum. The black patch on inner web of outer tail-feather near the base increases on the second and third, on the latter leaving the end only with an oblique white patch. The bands on the under surface have a tendency to a transversely cordate and interrupted, rather than a continuous, linear arrangement.
Young birds have the whole top of head red, as in P. scalaris, with or without white at the base of the red. The white nasal tufts and other characters will, however, distinguish them.
This bird, though widely different in appearance from scalaris, may nevertheless, without any violence, be regarded as but one extreme of a species of which the lighter examples of scalaris (bairdi) are the other, the transition towards nuttalli being through var. scalaris, var. graysoni, and var. lucasanus, each in that succession showing a nearer approach to the distinctive features of nuttalli. We have not seen any intermediate specimens, however. The pure white instead of smoky-brown nasal tufts, and their greater development, are the only characters which show a marked difference from the varieties of scalaris; but the other differences are nothing more than an extension of the black markings and restriction of the red in the male, the result of a melanistic tendency in the Pacific region.
Habits. This species was first discovered by Dr. Gambel near Los Angeles, Cal., and described by him in the Proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy. Afterwards, in his paper on the birds of California, published in the Academy’s Journal, mistaking it for the P. scalaris of Wagler, he furnished a fuller description of the bird and its habits, and gave with it illustrations of both sexes. So far as now known, it appears to be confined to the regions in California and Oregon west of the Coast Range, extending as far south as San Diego, representing, in its distribution on the Pacific, the P. borealis of the Atlantic States. One specimen in the Smithsonian collections was obtained on Umpqua River, in Oregon Territory; the others at Santa Clara, San Francisco, Petaluma, Bodega, and Yreka, in California. Dr. Woodhouse says, in his Report on the birds of the Zuñi and Colorado expedition, that he has only seen this bird in California, from which region he has examined numerous specimens. Dr. Heermann, in his Report on the birds of Lieutenant Williamson’s expedition, states that this Woodpecker is occasionally found in the mountains of Northern California, but that it is much more abundant in the valleys. Dr. Gambel found it abundant in California at all seasons. He describes it as having the usual habits of Woodpeckers, familiarly examining the fence-rails and orchard-trees for its insect-fare. He found it breeding at Santa Barbara, and on the 1st of May discovered a nest containing young in the dead stump of an oak, about fifteen feet from the ground. The hole for entrance was remarkably small, but inside appeared large and deep. The parents were constantly bringing insects and larvæ.
Dr. Cooper states that this Woodpecker is quite abundant towards the coast of California, and among the foothills west of the Sierra Nevada. It frequents the oaks and the smaller trees almost exclusively, avoiding the coniferous forests. It is very industrious, and not easily frightened, when engaged in hammering on the bark of trees allowing a very near approach. At other times, when pursued, it becomes more wary and suspicious. April 20, 1862, Dr. Cooper discovered a nest of this bird near San Diego. It was in a rotten stump, and was only about four feet from the ground. He captured the female on her nest, which contained five eggs of a pure pearly whiteness.
These birds are said to remain throughout the year in the valleys, and to migrate very little, if at all. Dr. Cooper has not observed it west of the Coast Range, except near Santa Barbara, nor has he seen any around gardens or orchards. None have been observed north or east of the State. East of the mountains it is replaced by the scalaris.
Mr. Xantus mentions finding a nest containing two eggs in a hole in the Cereus giganteus, about fifteen feet from the ground. The excavation made by the bird was about a foot and a half deep and six inches wide.
This Woodpecker Mr. Ridgway saw only in the Sacramento Valley, where, in June, it appeared to be a common species among the oaks of the plains. He did not learn anything of its habits, but describes its notes as very peculiar, the usual one being a prolonged querulous rattling call, unlike that of any other bird known to him.
Subgenus PHRENOPICUS, Bonap.
Phrenopicus, Bonap. Consp. Vol. Zygod. Ateneo Ital. 1854. (Type, Picus borealis, Vieill.)
Phrenopipo, Cab. & Hein. Mus. Hein. 1863, 70. Same type.
This subgenus is closely related in external form to the preceding, differing in rather longer and more pointed wings and tail, the latter especially, and a very small, short bill. The first quill (excluding the spurious one) is considerably longer than the sixth, not shorter. The tail-feathers are much attenuated at end. The most marked differences in coloration of the type species, P. borealis, consists in the absence of the post-ocular black patch, leaving the whole auricular region white, and in the restriction of the red to a very narrow line on each side, usually concealed.
Some authors place Picus stricklandi of Mexico (Phrenopipo or Xylocopus stricklandi, Cab. and Hein.) in this section, to which it may indeed belong as far as the wing is concerned, but the markings are entirely different.
RED-COCKADED WOODPECKER.
Picus borealis, Vieillot, Ois. Am. Sept. II, 1807, 66, pl. cxxii.—Stephens, in Shaw’s Gen. Zoöl. IX, 1817, 174.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 96.—Cassin, Pr. A. N. S. 1863, 201.—Gray, Catal. 1868, 50.—Allen, B. E. Fla. 305.—Sundevall, Consp. 1866, 21. Threnopipo borealis, Cab. & Hein. Mus. Hein. IV, 2, 70. Picus querulus, Wilson, Am. Orn. II, 1810, 103, pl. xv, f. 1.—Wagler, Syst. Av. 1827, No. 21.—Ib. Isis, 1829, 510.—Aud. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 12, pl. ccclxxxix.—Ib. Birds Am. IV, 1842, 254, pl. cclxiv.—Bp. Consp. 1850, 137.—Cassin, Pr. A. N. S. 1863 (southernmost race). Picus (Phrenopicus) querulus, Bp. Consp. Zyg. Aten. Ital. 1854, 8. Picus leucotis, Illiger (fide Lichtenstein in letter to Wagler; perhaps only a catalogue name).—Licht. Verzeich. 1823, 12, No. 81. Picus vieilloti, Wagler, Syst. Av. 1827, No. 20.
Sp. Char. Fourth quill (not counting the spurious) longest. First nearer tip of fifth than of sixth, intermediate between the two. Upper parts, with top and sides of the head, black. Back, rump, and scapulars banded transversely with white; quills spotted with white on both webs; middle and greater coverts spotted. Bristles of bill, under parts generally, and a silky patch on the side of the head, white. Sides of breast and body streaked with black. First and second outer tail-feathers white, barred with black on inner web. Outer web of the third mostly white. A short, very inconspicuous narrow streak of silky scarlet on the side of the head a short distance behind the eye, along the junction of the white and black (this is wanting in the female); a narrow short line of white just above the eye. Length, about 7.25; wing, 4.50; tail, 3.25.
Hab. Southern States, becoming very rare north to Pennsylvania.
This species differs from the other banded Woodpeckers, as stated in the diagnosis, in having a large patch of white behind the eye, including the ears and sides of head, and not traversed by a black post-ocular stripe. The bands of the back, as in P. nuttalli, do not reach the nape, nor extend over the upper tail-covert. The white patch occupies almost exactly the same area as the black one in nuttalli; the white space covered by the supra-orbital and malar stripes, and the white patch on side of nape, of the latter species being here black.
According to Mr. Cassin, southern specimens which he distinguishes as P. querulus from P. borealis of Pennsylvania, differ in smaller number of transverse bars on the back, and shorter quills, and in fewer white spots on the wing-coverts and outer primaries. The black band on the back of neck is wider. This therefore exhibits the same tendency to melanism, in more southern specimens, that has been already indicated for P. villosus, scalaris, etc.
Habits. The Red-cockaded Woodpecker has a restricted distribution to the Southeastern Atlantic States, being rarely met with so far north as Pennsylvania. Georgia and Florida are the only localities represented in the Smithsonian collection, though other Southern States not named have furnished specimens. It has been met with as far to the west as Eastern Texas and the Indian Territory, where Dr. Woodhouse speaks of having found them common.
(Report of an Expedition down the Zuñi and Colorado Rivers, Zoölogy, p. 89.) Wilson only met with it in the pine woods of North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina, and does not appear to have been acquainted with its habits. Audubon speaks of it as being found abundantly from Texas to New Jersey, and as far inland as Tennessee, and as nowhere more numerous than in the pine barrens of Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas. He found these birds mated in Florida as early as January, and engaged in preparing a breeding-place in February. The nest, he states, is not unfrequently bored in a decayed stump about thirty feet high. The eggs he describes as smooth and pure white, and as usually four in number, though he has found as many as six in a nest. The young crawl out of their holes before they are able to fly, and wait on the branches to receive the food brought by their parents until they are able to shift for themselves. During the breeding-season the call of these birds is more than usually lively and petulant, and is reiterated through the pine woods where it is chiefly found.
Wilson compares the common call-notes of these birds to the querulous cries of young birds. His attention was first directed to them by this peculiarity. He characterizes the species as restless, active, and clamorous.
Though almost exclusively a Southern species, and principally found south of North Carolina, individuals have been known to wander much farther north. Mr. G. N. Lawrence obtained a specimen of this bird in Hoboken, N. J., opposite New York City.
In quickness of motion this Woodpecker is said to be equalled by very few of the family. Mr. Audubon states that it glides upwards and sideways, along the trunks and branches, on the lower as well as the upper sides of the latter, moving with great celerity, and occasionally uttering a short, shrill, clear cry, that can be heard at a considerable distance. Mr. Audubon kept a wounded one several days. It soon cut its way out of a cage, and ascended the wall of the room as it would a tree, seizing such spiders and insects as it was able to find. Other than this it would take no food, and was set at liberty.
In the stomach of one dissected were found small ants and a few minute coleopterous insects. In Florida it mates in January and nests in February. In the winter it seeks shelter in holes, as also in stormy weather. Mr. Audubon states that it occasionally feeds on grain and on small fruits. Some go to the ground to search for those that have fallen from trees. They are always found in pairs, and during the breeding-season are very pugnacious.
An egg of this species obtained near Wilmington, N. C., by Mr. N. Giles, measures .95 by .70 of an inch. It is pure white, appeared less glossy than the eggs of most Woodpeckers, and was of a more elliptical shape. Another egg of this bird sent to me by Mr. Samuel Pasco of Monticello, Fla., measures .98 by .70 of an inch, being even more oblong in shape, and corresponds
also in the absence of that brilliant polish so common in most Woodpeckers.
Subgenus XENOPICUS, Baird.
Xenopicus, Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 83. (Type, Leuconerpes albolarvatus, Cass.)
Xenocraugus, Cab. & Hein. Mus. Hein. IV, 2, 1863, 74. (Same type.)
This section of Picus is not appreciably different in form from Picus villosus, which may be taken as the American type of the genus Picus. The plumage appears softer, however, and the uniformly black body with white head and white patch at base of primaries will readily distinguish it from any allied group.
Picus albolarvatus, Baird.
WHITE-HEADED WOODPECKER.
Leuconerpes albolarvatus, Cassin, Pr. A. N. Sc. V, Oct. 1850, 106 (California). Bonap. Consp. Zyg. At. Ital. 1854, 10. Melanerpes albolarvatus, Cassin, J. A. N. Sc. 2d series, II, Jan. 1853, 257, pl. xxii.—Newberry, Zoöl. Cal. and Oreg. Route, 9, Rep. P. R. R. VI, 1857. Picus (Xenopicus) albolarvatus, Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 96.—Cassin, Pr. A. N. Sc. 1863, 202.—Lord, Pr. R. Art. Ins. IV, 1864, 112 (Ft. Colville; nesting).—Cooper & Suckley, 160.—Elliot, Birds N. Am. IX, plate. Picus albolarvatus, Sundevall, Consp. Pic. 29.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. I, 1870, 382. Xenocraugus albolarvatus, Cab. & Hein. Mus. Hein. IV, 2, 1863, 74. Xenopicus albolarvatus, Elliot, Illust. Birds Am. I, pl. xxix.
Picus albolarvatus.
Sp. Char. Fourth and fifth quills equal and longest; tip of first equidistant between sixth and seventh. Entirely bluish-black, excepting the head and neck, and the outer edges of the primaries (except outermost), and the concealed bases of all the quills, which are white. Length, about 9.00; wing, 5.25. Male with a narrow crescent of red on the occiput.
Hab. Cascade Mountains of Oregon and southward into California. Sierra Nevada.
Habits. This very plainly marked Woodpecker, formerly considered very rare, is now known to be abundant in the mountains of Northern California and Nevada, as also in the mountain-ranges of Washington Territory and Oregon. Dr. Cooper found it quite common near the summits of the Sierra Nevada, latitude 39°, in September, 1863, and procured three specimens. Three years previously he had met with it at Fort Dalles, Columbia River. He thinks that its chief range of distribution will be found to be between those two points. He also found it as far north as Fort Colville, in the northern part of Washington Territory, latitude 49°. He characterizes it as a rather silent bird.
Dr. Newberry only met with this bird among the Cascade Mountains, in Oregon, where he did not find it common.
Mr. J. G. Bell, who first discovered this species, in the vicinity of Sutter’s Mills, in California, on the American River, represents it as frequenting the higher branches of the pines, keeping almost out of gunshot range. Active and restless in its movements, it uttered at rare intervals a sharp and clear note, while busily pursuing its search for food.
Mr. John K. Lord states that the only place in which he saw this very rare bird was in the open timbered country about the Colville Valley and Spokan River. He has observed that this Woodpecker almost invariably haunts woods of the Pinus ponderosa, and never retires into the thick damp forest. It arrives in small numbers at Colville, in April, and disappears again in October and November, or as soon as the snow begins to fall. Although he did not succeed in obtaining its eggs, he saw a pair nesting in the month of May in a hole bored in the branch of a very tall pine-tree. It seldom flies far, but darts from tree to tree with a short jerking flight, and always, while flying, utters a sharp, clear, chirping cry. Mr. Ridgway found it to be common in the pine forests of the Sierra Nevada, in the region of the Donner Lake Pass. It was first observed in July, at an altitude of about five thousand feet, on the western slope of that range, where it was seen playing about the tops of the tallest dead pines. On various occasions, at all seasons, it was afterwards found to be quite plentiful on the eastern slope, in the neighborhood of Carson City, Nevada. Its habits and manners are described as much like those of the P. harrisi, but it is of a livelier and more restless disposition. Its notes have some resemblance to those of that species, but are of a more rattling character. It is easily recognized, when seen, by its strikingly peculiar plumage.
Picoides, Lacep. Mem. Inst. 1799. (Type, Picus tridactylus.)
Tridactylia, Steph. Shaw, Gen. Zoöl. 1815.
Apternus, Sw. F. B. A. II, 1831, 311.
Picoides arcticus.
39143 ♂
Gen. Char. Bill about as long as the head, very much depressed at the base; the outlines nearly straight; the lateral ridge at its base much nearer the commissure than the culmen, so as to bring the large, rather linear nostrils close to the edge of the commissure. The gonys very long, equal to the distance from the nostrils to the tip of the bill. Feet with only three toes, the first or inner hinder one being wanting; the outer lateral a little longer than the inner, but slightly exceeded by the hind toe, which is about equal to the tarsus. Wings very long, reaching beyond the middle of the tail, the tip of the first quill between those of sixth and seventh. Color black above, with a broad patch of yellow on the crown; white beneath, transversely banded on the sides. Quills, but not wing-coverts, with round spots. Lateral tail-feathers white, without bands on exposed portion, except in European specimens.
The peculiarities of this genus consist in the absence of the inner hind toe and the great depression of the bill. The figure above fails to represent the median ridge of the bill as viewed from above.
Common Characters. The American species of Picoides agree in being black above and white beneath; the crown with a square yellow patch in the male; a white stripe behind the eye, and another from the loral region beneath the eye; the quills (but not the coverts) spotted with white; the sides banded transversely with black. The diagnostic characters (including the European species) are as follows:—
Species and Varieties.
P. arcticus. Dorsal region without white markings; no supraloral white stripe or streak, nor nuchal band of white. Four middle tail-feathers wholly black; the next pair with the basal half black; the outer two pairs almost wholly white, without any dark bars. Entire sides heavily banded with black; crissum immaculate; sides of the breast continuously black. ♂. Crown with a patch of yellow, varying from lemon, through gamboge, to orange, and not surrounded by any whitish markings or suffusion. ♀. Crown lustrous black, without any yellow, and destitute of white streaks or other markings. Wing, 4.85 to 5.25; tail, 3.60; culmen, 1.40 to 1.55. Hab. Northern parts of North America. In winter just within the northern border of the United States, but farther south on high mountain-ranges.
P. tridactylus. Dorsal region with white markings, of various amount and direction; a more or less distinct supraloral white streak or stripe, and a more or less apparent nuchal band of the same. Four to six middle tail-feathers entirely black; when six, the remainder are white, with distinct black bars to their ends; when four, they are white without any black bars, except occasionally a few toward the base. Sides always with black streaks or markings, but they are sometimes very sparse; crissum banded with black, or immaculate; sides of the breast not continuously black. ♂. Crown with a patch of gamboge, amber, or sulphur-yellow, surrounded by a whitish suffusion or markings. ♀. Crown without any yellow, but distinctly streaked, speckled, or suffused with whitish (very seldom plain black).
a. Six middle tail-feathers wholly black. Europe and Asia.
Sides and crissum heavily barred with black (black bars about as wide as the white ones).
Back usually transversely spotted with white; occasionally longitudinally striped with the same in Scandinavian examples. Wing, 4.80 to 5.10; tail, 3.80 to 4.00; culmen, 1.20 to 1.35. Hab. Europe … var. tridactylus.[127]
Sides and crissum almost free from black bars; black bars on the outer tail-feathers very much narrower than the white.
Back always (?) striped longitudinally with white. Wing, 4.70 to 4.75; tail, 3.65 to 3.90; culmen, 1.20 to 1.35. Hab. Siberia and Northern Russia … var. crissoleucus.[128]
b. Four middle tail-feathers, only, wholly black. North America.
Sides heavily barred with black, but crissum without bars, except beneath the surface. Three outer tail-feathers without black bars, except sometimes on the basal portion of the inner webs. Wing, 4.40 to 5.10; tail, 3.40 to 3.70; culmen, 1.10 to 1.25.
Back transversely spotted or barred with white. Hab. Hudson’s Bay region; south in winter to northern border of Eastern United States … var. americanus.
Back longitudinally striped with white at all seasons. Hab. Rocky Mountains; north to Alaska … var. dorsalis.
THE BLACK-BACKED THREE-TOED WOODPECKER.
Picus (Apternus) arcticus, Sw. F. Bor. Am. II, 1831, 313. Apternus arcticus, Bp. List, 1838.—Ib. Consp. 1850, 139.—Newberry, Zoöl. Cal. and Oreg. Route, 91, Rep. P. R. R. Surv. VI, 1857. Picus arcticus, Aud. Syn. 1839, 182.—Ib. Birds Amer. VI, 1842, 266, pl. cclxviii.—Nuttall, Man. I, (2d ed.,) 1840, 691.—Sundevall, Consp. I, 1866, 15. Picus tridactylus, Bon. Am. Orn. II, 1828, 14, pl. xiv, f. 2.—Aud. Orn. Biog. II, 1834, 198, pl. cxxxii. Tridactylia arctica, Cab. & Hein. Picoides arcticus, Gray, Gen.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 98.—Lord, Pr. R. Art. Inst. Woolwich, IV, 1864, 112 (Cascade Mountains).—Cooper, Pr. Cal. Ac. Sc. 1868 (Lake Tahoe and Sierra Nevada).—Samuels, 94.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 384.
Picoides arcticus.
Sp. Char. Above entirely uniform glossy bluish-black; a square patch on the middle of the crown saffron-yellow, and a few white spots on the outer edges of both webs of the primary and secondary quills. Beneath white, on the sides of whole body, axillars, and inner wing-coverts banded transversely with black. Crissum white, with a few spots anteriorly. A narrow concealed white line from the eye a short distance backwards, and a white stripe from the extreme forehead (meeting anteriorly) under the eye, and down the sides of the neck, bordered below by a narrow stripe of black. Bristly feathers of the base of the bill brown; sometimes a few gray intermixed. Exposed portion of two outer tail-feathers (first and second) white; the third obliquely white at end, tipped with black. Sometimes these feathers with a narrow black tip.
Hab. Northern North America; south to northern borders of United States in winter. Massachusetts (Maynard, B. E. Mass., 1870, 129). Sierra Nevada, south to 39°. Lake Tahoe (Cooper); Carson City (Ridgway).
This species differs from the other American three-toed Woodpeckers chiefly in having the back entirely black. The white line from the eye is usually almost imperceptible, if not wanting entirely. Specimens vary very little; one from Slave Lake has a longer bill than usual, and the top of head more orange. The size of the vertex patch varies; sometimes the frontal whitish is inappreciable. None of the females before me have any white spots in the black of head, as in that of americanus.
The variations in this species are very slight, being chiefly in the shade of the yellow patch on the crown, which varies from a sulphur tint to a rich orange. Sometimes there is the faintest trace of a whitish post-ocular streak, but usually this is wholly absent. Western and Eastern examples appear to be identical.
PLATE L.
1. Picoides arcticus. ♂ Nova Scotia, 26923.
2. Picoides americanus. ♂ New Brunswick, 39143.
3. Picus nuttalli. ♂ Cal., 4482.
4. Picus scalaris. ♂ Texas, 46804.
5. Picus scalaris. ♀ Texas, 9933.
6. Picus nuttalli. ♀ Cal., 5400.
7. Picus albolarvatus. ♂ Cal., 16066.
8. Picus albolarvatus ♀ Cal.
Habits. This species has a well-defined and extended distribution, from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and from the northern portions of the United States to the extreme Arctic regions. In the United States it has been found as far south as Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio, but rarely; and, so far as I am aware, it is a winter visitant only to any but the extreme northern portions of the Union, except along the line of the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. Audubon says it occurs in Northern Massachusetts, and in all portions of Maine that are covered by forests of tall trees, where it constantly resides. He saw a few in the Great Pine Forest of Pennsylvania, and Dr. Bachman noticed several in the neighborhood of Niagara Falls, and was of the opinion that it breeds in the northern part of New York. The same writer describes the nesting-place of the Arctic Woodpecker as generally bored in the body of a sound tree, near its first large branches. He observed no particular choice as to the timber, having seen it in oaks, pines, etc. The nest, like that of most of this family, is worked out by both sexes, and requires fully a week for its completion. Its usual depth is from twenty to twenty-four inches. It is smooth and broad at the bottom, although so narrow at its entrance as to appear scarcely sufficient to enable one of the birds to enter it. The eggs are from four to six, rather rounded and pure white. Only one brood is raised in the season. The young follow their parents until the autumn. In the southern districts where these Woodpeckers are found, their numbers are greatly increased in the winter by accessions from the North.
Dr. Cooper found this species quite numerous, in September, in the vicinity of Lake Tahoe and the summits of the Sierra Nevada, above an altitude of six thousand feet. From thence this bird has a northern range chiefly on the east side of these mountains and of the Cascade Range. None were seen near the Lower Columbia. At the lake they were quite fearless, coming close to the hotel, and industriously rapping the trees in the evening and in the early morning. Farther north Dr. Cooper found them very wild, owing probably to their having been hunted by the Indians for their skins, which they consider very valuable. He noticed their burrows in low pine-trees near the lake, where he had no doubt they also raise their young. Dr. Cooper has always found them very silent birds, though in the spring they probably have more variety of calls. The only note he heard was a shrill, harsh, rattling cry, quite distinct from that of any other Woodpecker.
The flight of this Woodpecker is described as rapid, gliding, and greatly undulated. Occasionally it will fly to quite a distance before it alights, uttering, from time to time, a loud shrill note.
Professor Verrill says this bird is very common in Western Maine, in the spring, fall, and winter, or from the middle of October to the middle or end of March. It is not known to occur there in the summer. Near Calais a few are seen, and it is supposed to breed, but is not common. In Massachusetts it is only a rare and accidental visitant, occurring usually late in
winter or in March. Two were taken near Salem in November. It is also a rare winter visitant near Hamilton in Canada.
Mr. Ridgway met with but a single individual of this species during his Western explorations. This was shot in February, near Carson City, Nevada; it was busily engaged in pecking upon the trunk of a large pine, and was perfectly silent.
Mr. John K. Lord obtained a single specimen of this bird on the summit of the Cascade Mountains. It was late in September, and getting cold; the bird was flying restlessly from tree to tree, but not searching for insects. Both when on the wing and when clinging to a tree, it was continually uttering a shrill, plaintive cry. Its favorite tree is the Pinus contorta, which grows at great altitudes. It is found chiefly on hill-tops, while in the valleys and lower plains it is replaced by the Picoides hirsutus.
Eggs of this species were obtained by Professor Agassiz on the northern shore of Lake Superior. They were slightly ovate, nearly spherical, rounded at one end and abruptly pointed at the other, of a crystal whiteness, and measured .91 of an inch in length by .70 in breadth.
An egg received from Mr. Krieghoff is small in proportion to the size of the bird, nearly spherical in form, and of a uniform dull-white color. It measures .92 of an inch in length by .76 in breadth.
Picoides tridactylus, var. americanus, Brehm.
THE WHITE-BACKED THREE-TOED WOODPECKER.
Picus hirsutus, Vieillot, Ois. Am. Sept. II, 1807, 68, pl. cxxiv (European specimen).—Wagler, Syst. Av. 1827, No. 27 (mixed with undulatus).—Aud. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 184, pl. ccccxvii.—Ib. Birds Amer. IV, 1842, pl. cclxix.—Nuttall, Man. I, (2d ed.,) 1840, 622. Apternus hirsutus, Bon. List, Picoides hirsutus, Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 98.—Samuels, 95. ? Picus undulatus, Vieillot, Ois. Am. Sept. II, 1807, 69 (based on Pl. enl. 553, fictitious species?) Picus undatus, Temm. Picus undosus, Cuv. R. A. 1829, 451 (all based on same figure). Tridactylia undulata, Cab. & Hein. Mus. Hein. IV, 2, 1863, 28. Picus tridactylus, Sw. F. Bor. Am. 1831, 311, pl. lvi. Picoides americanus, Brehm, Vögel Deutschlands, 1831, 195.—Malherbe, Mon. Picidæ, I, 176, pl. xvii, 36.—Sclater, Catal.—Gray, Cat. Br. Mus. III, 3, 4, 1868, 30. Apternus americanus, Swainson, Class. II, 1837, 306. Picus americanus, Sundevall, Consp. Av. Picin. 1866, 15. Picoides dorsalis, Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 100, pl. lxxxv, f. 1.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870 (under P. americanus). Tridactylia dorsalis, Cab. & Hein. Picus dorsalis, Sundevall, Consp. 1866, 14.
Sp. Char. Black above. The back markings of white, transverse in summer, and longitudinal in winter; these extend to the rump, which is sometimes almost wholly white. A white line from behind the eye, widening on the nape, and a broader one under the eye from the loral region, but not extending on the forehead; occiput and sides of head uniform black. Quills, but not coverts, spotted on both webs with white, seen on inner webs of inner secondaries. Under parts, including crissum, white; the sides, including axillars and lining of wing, banded transversely with black. Exposed portion of outer three tail-feathers white; that of third much less, and sometimes with a narrow tip of black. Upper tail-coverts sometimes tipped with white, and occasionally, but very rarely,
banded with the same. Top of the head spotted, streaked, or suffused with white; the crown of the male with a yellow patch. Nasal bristles black, mixed with gray. Female with the whole top of head usually spotted with white, very rarely entirely black.
Hab. Arctic regions of North America; southward in the Rocky Mountains to Fort Buchanan; northern border of the Eastern United States, in winter (Massachusetts, Maynard).
This species varies considerably in its markings, especially in the amount of white above. The head is sometimes more coarsely spotted with white than in the average; very rarely are the white spots wanting, leaving merely the broad malar and interrupted post-ocular stripe. The rictal black stripe is sometimes much obscured by white. In typical specimens from the Hudson Bay and Labrador Provinces, which seem to be darkest, the feathers of the centre of the back have three transverse bars of white (one of them terminal), rather narrower than the intermediate black bars; the basal white ones disappearing both anteriorly and posteriorly, leaving but two. In specimens from the Mackenzie River district there is a greater development of white; the white bands being broader than the black, and sometimes extending along the shafts so as to reduce the black bars to pairs of spots. The next step is the disappearance of these spots on one side or the other, or on both, leaving the end of the feathers entirely white, especially anteriorly, where the back may have a longitudinal stripe of white, as in Picus villosus. Usually, however, in this extreme, the upper tail-coverts remain banded transversely. In all the specimens from the Rocky Mountains of the United States, especially Laramie Peak, this white back, unbarred except on the rump, is a constant character, and added to it we have a broad nuchal patch of white running into that of the back and connected with the white post-ocular stripe. The bands, too, on the sides of the body, are less distinct. It was to this state of plumage that the name of P. dorsalis was applied, in 1858, and although in view of the connecting links it may not be entitled to consideration as a distinct race, this tendency to a permanence of the longitudinal direction of the white markings above seems to be especially characteristic of the Rocky Mountain region, appearing only in winter birds from elsewhere. This same character prevails in all the Rocky Mountain specimens from more northern regions, including those from Fort Liard, and in only one not found in that region, namely, No. 49,905, collected at Nulato by Mr. Dall. Here the middle of the back is very white, although the nuchal band is less distinct. Other specimens from that locality and the Yukon River generally, as also from Kodiak, distinctly show the transverse bars.
In one specimen (29,126) from the Mackenzie River, all the upper tail-coverts are banded decidedly with white, and the wing-coverts spotted with the same. Even the central tail-feathers show white scallops. The back is, however, banded transversely very distinctly, not longitudinally.
P. americanus in all stages of color is distinguished from arcticus by the white along the middle of the back, the absence of distinct frontal white
and black bands, more numerous spots of white on the head, etc. The inner webs of inner secondaries are banded with white, not uniform black. The maxillary black stripe is rather larger than the rictal white one, not smaller. The size is decidedly smaller. Females almost always have the top of head spotted with white instead of uniform black, which is the rule in arcticus.
It is probable that the difference in the amount of white on the upper parts of this species is to some extent due to age and season, the winter specimens and the young showing it to the greatest degree. Still, however, there is a decided geographical relationship, as already indicated.
This race of P. tridactylus can be easily distinguished from the European form of Northern and Alpine Europe by the tail-feathers; of these, the outer three are white (the rest black) as far as exposed, without any bands; the tip of the third being white only at the end. The supra-ocular white stripe is very narrow and scarcely appreciable; the crissum white and unbanded. The back is banded transversely in one variety, striped longitudinally in the other. In P. tridactylus the outer two feathers on each side are white, banded with black; the outer with the bands regular and equal from base; the second black, except one or two terminal bands. The crissum is well banded with black; the back striped longitudinally with white; the supra-ocular white stripe almost as broad as the infra-ocular. P. crisoleucus, of Siberia, is similar to the last, but differs in white crissum, and from both species in the almost entire absence of dark bands on the sides, showing the Arctic maximum of white.
We follow Sundevall in using the specific name americanus, Brehm, for this species, as being the first legitimately belonging to it. P. hirsutus of Vieillot, usually adopted, is based on a European bird, and agrees with it, though referred by the author to the American. The name of undulatus, Vieillot, selected by Cabanis, is based on Buffon’s figure (Pl. enl. 553) of a bird said to be from Cayenne, with four toes; the whole top of the head red from base of bill to end of occiput, with the edges of the dorsal feathers narrowly white, and with the three lateral tail-feathers regularly banded with black, tipped with red; the fourth, banded white and black on outer web, tipped with black. None of those features belong to the bird of Arctic America, and the markings answer, if to either, better to the European.
Habits. This rare and interesting species, so far as has been ascertained, is nowhere a common or well-known bird. It is probably exclusively of Arctic residence, and only occasionally or very rarely is found so far south as Massachusetts. In the winter of 1836 I found a specimen exposed for sale in the Boston market, which was sent in alcohol to Mr. Audubon. Two specimens have been taken in Lynn, by Mr. Welch, in 1868. They occur, also, in Southern Wisconsin in the winter, where Mr. Kumlien has several times, in successive winters, obtained single individuals.
Sir John Richardson states that this bird is to be met with in all the forests of spruce and fir lying between Lake Superior and the Arctic Sea, and
that it is the most common Woodpecker north of Great Slave Lake, whence it has frequently been sent to the Smithsonian Institution. It is said to greatly resemble P. villosus in habits, except that it seeks its food principally upon decaying trees of the pine tribe, in which it frequently makes holes large enough to bury itself. It is not migratory.
Genus SPHYROPICUS, Baird.
Pilumnus, Bon. Consp. Zygod. Ateneo Italiano, May, 1854. (Type P. thyroideus) preoccupied in crustaceans.
Sphyropicus, Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 101. (Type, Picus varius,) Linn., Coues, Pr. A. N. S. 1866, 52 (anatomy).
Cladoscopus, Cab. & Hein. Mus. Hein. IV, 2, 1863, 80. (Type, P. varius.)
Sphyropicus nuchalis.
20511 ♀
Gen. Char. Bill as in Picus, but the lateral ridge, which is very prominent, running out distinctly to the commissure at about its middle, beyond which the bill is rounded without any angles at all. The culmen and gonys are very nearly straight, but slightly convex, the bill tapering rapidly to a point; the lateral outline concave to very near the slightly bevelled tip. Outer pair of toes longest; the hinder exterior rather longest; the inner posterior toe very short, less than the inner anterior without its claw. Wings long and pointed; the third, excluding the spurious, longest. Tail-feathers very broad, abruptly acuminate, with a very long linear tip. Tongue scarcely extensible.
The genus Sphyropicus, instituted in 1858, proves to be so strongly marked in its characters that Dr. Coues proposes to make it the type of a distinct subfamily, Sphyropicinæ (Pr. Phil. Acad. 1866, 52). In addition to the peculiarities already indicated, there is a remarkable feature in the tongue, which, according to Dr. Coues, Dr. Hoy, Dr. Bryant, and others, is incapable of protrusion much beyond the tip of the bill, or not more than the third of an inch. Dr. Coues states that the apo-hyal and cerato-hyal elements of the hyoid bone do not reach back much beyond the tympano-maxillary articulation, instead of extending round, as in Picus, over the occiput to the top of the cranium, or even curving into an osseous groove around the orbit. The basihyals supporting the tongue are shorter and differently shaped. The tongue itself is short and flattened, with a superior longitudinal median groove and a corresponding inferior ridge; the tip is broad and flattened and obtusely
rounded, and with numerous long and soft bristly hairs. This is, of course, very different from the long, extensile, acutely pointed tongue of other Woodpeckers, with its tip armed with a few strong, sharp, short, recurved barbs.
Dr. Hoy and Dr. Coues maintain that the food of these Woodpeckers consists mainly of the cambium or soft inner bark of trees, which is cut out in patches sometimes of several inches in extent, and usually producing square holes in the bark, not rounded ones. As may be supposed, such proceedings are very injurious to the trees, and justly call down the vengeance of their proprietors. This diet is varied with insects and fruits, when they can be had, but it is believed that cambium is their principal sustenance.
This strongly marked genus appears to be composed of two sections and three well-defined species; the first being characterized by having the back variegated with whitish, and the jugulum with a sharply defined crescentic patch of black, though the latter is sometimes concealed by red, when the whole head and neck are of the latter color, and the sharply defined striped pattern of the cephalic regions, seen in the normal plumage, obliterated. Comparing the extreme conditions of plumage to be seen in this type, as in the females of varius and of ruber, the differences appear wide indeed, and few would entertain for a moment a suspicion of their specific identity; yet upon carefully examining a sufficiently large series of specimens, we find these extremes to be connected by an unbroken transition, and are thus led to view these different conditions as manifestations of a peculiar law principally affecting a certain color, which leads us irresistibly to the conclusion that the group which at first seemed to compose a section of the genus is in reality only an association of forms of specific identity. Beginning with the birds of the Atlantic region (S. varius), we find in this series the minimum amount of red; indeed, many adult females occur which lack this color entirely, having not only the whole throat white, but the entire pileum glossy-black; usually, however, the latter is crimson. In adult males from this region the front and crown are always crimson, sharply defined, and bordered laterally and posteriorly with glossy-black; and below the black occipital band is another of dirty white; the crimson of the throat is wholly confined between the continuous broad, black malar stripes, and there is no tinge of red on the auriculars; there is a broad, sharply defined stripe of white beginning with the nasal tufts, passing beneath the black loral and auricular stripe, and continuing downward into the yellowish of the abdomen, giving the large, glossy-black pectoral area a sharply defined outline; the dirty whitish nuchal band is continued forward beneath the black occipital crescent to above the middle of the eye. The pattern just described will be found in ninety-nine out of a hundred specimens from the Eastern Province of North America (also the West Indies and whole of Mexico); but a single adult male, from Carlisle, Penn. (No. 12,071, W. M. Baird), has the whitish nuchal band distinctly tinged with red, though differing in
this respect only, while an adult female, from Washington, D. C. (No. 12,260, C. Drexler), has the lower part of the throat much mixed with red.
Taking next the specimens from the Rocky Mountains and Middle Province of the United States (S. nuchalis), we find that all the specimens possess both these additional amounts of the red, there being always a red, instead of dirty-white, nuchal crescent, while in the female the lower part of the throat is always more or less red; in addition, the male has the red of the throat reaching laterally to the white stripe, thus interrupting the black malar one, which is always unbroken in the eastern form; and in addition, the auriculars are frequently mixed with red. Proceeding towards the Columbia River, we find the red increasing, or escaping the limits to which it is confined in the normal pattern, staining the white and black areas in different places, and tingeing the whitish which borders the black pectoral area.
Lastly, in the series from the Pacific coast (S. ruber), we find the whole normal pattern rendered scarcely definable—sometimes entirely obliterated—by the extension of the red, which covers continuously the whole head, neck, and breast; but nearly always the normal pattern may be traced, the feathers of the normally black areas being dusky beneath the surface, and those of the usual white stripes very white for the concealed portion. Usually, in this form, the red of the breast covers only the black pectoral area; but in extreme specimens it reaches back to the middle of the body beneath, and stains the white spots of the back.
With the increase of the red as we proceed westward, there is also a decrease in the amount of white above; thus, in varius the whole back is irregularly spotted with dirty white and black,—the former predominating, the latter most conspicuous as a medial, broken broad stripe,—and the lateral tail-feathers are much variegated by white spots. In nuchalis the back is mostly unbroken glossy-black, with two parallel narrow stripes of white converging at their lower ends; and the lateral tail-feather is almost wholly black, having merely a narrow white border toward the end. S. ruber is most like nuchalis, but has the white still more restricted.
In varius the bill is dark brown, in nuchalis it is deep black, and in ruber wax-brown. In varius the yellow of the lower parts is deepest, in nuchalis just appreciable.
Species and Varieties.
A. Wing with a white patch on the middle and greater coverts. Markings along the sides with a longitudinal tendency.
1. S. varius. Back variegated medially with brownish-white; secondaries with transverse rows of white spots.
White and black stripes on side of head sharply defined, as is also the black pectoral crescent. Red confined to isolated patches,—two large ones, one on the crown and one on the throat; when there is more, only a tinge on the auriculars, and a crescent on nape.
Crown sometimes glossy black without a trace of red on the female; no tinge of scarlet on the nape. Red of the throat entirely confined
within the broad, continuous black maxillary stripe. Female with the throat wholly white. Hab. Eastern Province North America, south in winter into West Indies, and over whole of Mexico, to Guatemala … var. varius.
Crown always red in adult. A nuchal crescent of scarlet in both sexes. Red of the throat not confined by the black maxillary stripe, which is interrupted by it in the middle, allowing the red to touch the white stripe; a tinge of red on the auriculars. Female always with more or less red on lower part of the throat. Hab. Rocky Mountains and Middle Province of United States … var. nuchalis.
White and black stripes on side of head obsolete, as is also the black pectoral crescent, caused by being overspread by a continuous red wash extending over whole head, neck, and breast.
Whole head, neck, and breast red, with the light and dark stripes of the normal pattern only faintly traceable. Sexes similar. Hab. Pacific Province of United States, north to British Columbia … var. ruber.
2. S. williamsoni. Back unvariegated; secondaries without bands of white spots.
Whole crown and upper parts (except lower part of rump and upper tail-coverts, and wing-patch), a stripe on side of head, a broader one on side of the throat, and the whole jugulum and sides of the breast, unbroken glossy-black; abdomen bright lemon-yellow. Male with a narrow stripe of scarlet on middle of the throat. Female with it white. Young like the adult. Hab. Western Province of United States.
B. Wing without a white patch. Markings on sides regularly transverse.
3. S. thyroideus. Head all round light brown; abdomen bright lemon-yellow; rump and upper tail-coverts white. Entire upper surface, with sides, regularly and continuously barred with black and white, in nearly equal amount; the black bars usually coalesced on the jugulum into a more or less extensive patch. Male with the throat tinged medially with scarlet. Female without any red. Hab. Western Province of United States.
PLATE LI.
1. Sphyropicus varius. ♂ Pa.
2. Sphyropicus varius. ♀ Pa., 2107.
3. Sphyropicus nuchalis. ♂ Wyoming, 10769.
4. Sphyropicus nuchalis. ♀ Wyoming, 10783.
5. Sphyropicus williamsoni. ♀ Cal., 16090.
6. Sphyropicus ruber. ♂ Cal., 6038.
Sphyropicus varius, var. varius, Baird.
THE YELLOW-BELLIED WOODPECKER.
Picus varius, L. Syst. Nat. I, 1766, 176.—Vieillot, Ois. Am. II, 1807, 63, pl. cxviii, cxix.—Wilson, Am. Orn. I, 1808, 147, pl. ix, f. 2.—Wagler, Syst. Av. 1827, No. 16.—Aud. Orn. Biog. II, 1834, 519; V, 537, pl. 190.—Ib. Birds Amer. IV, 1842, 263, pl. cclxvii.—Bon. List, 1838.—Ib. Consp. 1850, 138.—Maxim. Cab. Jour. VI, 1858, 416 (refers to peculiar tongue).—Gosse, Birds Jam. 270 (Jamaica).—Newton, Ibis, 1860, 308 (St. Croix).—Taylor, Ibis, 1860, 119 (Honduras).—Sundevall, Consp. 33.—Gray, Cat. 51. Picus (Dendrocopus) varius, Sw. F. B. A. II, 1831, 309. Pilumnus varius, Bon. Consp. Zygod. Aten. Ital. 1854, 8. Cladoscopus varius, Cab. & Hein. Mus. 80. ? Picus atrothorax, Lesson, Traité d’Ornithologie, I, 1831, 229.—Pucheran, Rev. Zoöl. VII, 1835, 21. (Refers it to Picus varius.) Yellow-bellied Woodpecker, Pennant, Latham. Sphyropicus varius, Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 103.—Sclater, P. Z. S. 1859, 367 (Xalapa).—Ib. Catal. 335 (Orizaba).—Ib. Ibis, 1859, 136 (Guatemala).—Ib. 1860, 119 (Honduras).—Cab. Journal, IV, 1856, 102.—Gundlach, Repertorium, I, 1866, 294 (Cuba).—Bryant, Pr. Bost. Soc. 1859 (Bahamas).—Ib. 1865, 91 (Anatomy of tongue.)—Dresser, Ibis, 1865, 468 (breeds in Texas).—Samuels, 96.—Allen, B. E. Fla. 306.
Sphyropicus varius.
Sp. Char. Third quill longest; second a little shorter; first between fourth and fifth considerably shorter. General color above black, much variegated with white. Feathers of the back and rump brownish-white, spotted with black. Crown crimson, bordered by black on the sides of the head and nape. A streak from above the eye, and a broad stripe from the bristles of the bill, passing below the eye, and into the yellowish of the belly, enclosing a black post-ocular one, and a stripe along the edges of the wing-coverts, white. A triangular broad patch of scarlet on the chin, bordered on each side by black stripes from the lower mandible which meet behind, and extend into a large quadrate spot on the breast. Rest of under parts yellowish-white, or yellow, streaked and banded on the sides with black. Inner web of inner tail-feather white, spotted with black. Outer feathers black, edged and spotted with white. Quills spotted with white. Length, 8.25; wing, about 4.75; tail, 3.30. Female with the red of the throat replaced by white. Immature bird without black on the breast, or red on top of the head, as in every intermediate stage to the perfect plumage.
Hab. Atlantic coast to the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains; Greenland; West Indies; whole of Mexico, to Guatemala. Localities: ? Oaxaca (Scl. P. Z. S. 1858, 305); Orizaba (Scl. Cat. 335); Xalapa (Scl. 1859, 367); Yucatan (Lawr. Ann. N. Y. Lyc. IX, 205); Guatemala (Scl. Ibis, I, 136); Honduras (Scl. Ibis, II, 119); Cuba (Cab. J. IV, 102); (Gundl. Repert. I, 1866, 294); Bahamas (Bryant, Pr. Bost. Soc. VII, 1859; Ib. 1867, 65); Jamaica (Gosse, B. Jam. 270); St. Croix (Scl. Ibis, II, 308); E. Texas (Dresser, Ibis, 1865, 468; breeds).
There is an occasional variation in the markings of the tail-feathers. Thus, in No. 782, from Carlisle, the innermost one is entirely black, while
in 4,631, from the Upper Missouri, the outer web of the same feather has nearly, and in 2,107, from Carlisle, it has quite, as much white as the inner web. The outer webs do not appear to vary so much.
Specimens from the whole of Mexico, including even the west coast, are referrible to varius; they are probably winter migrants from the eastern United States.
A female, from Washington, D. C. (No. 12,260, C. Drexler), has the lower half of the throat much mixed with red, as in var. nuchalis; but there is no trace of this color on the nape. A male from Carlisle (No. 12,071, W. M. Baird) has the nape distinctly tinged with red, as in nuchalis, but the black malar stripe is uninterrupted. Similar specimens have been taken in New England, by Messrs. Brewster and Henshaw.
Many females occur with the entire pileum glossy-black, there being no trace of red, though there are sometimes specks of white.
Habits. The Yellow-bellied Woodpecker is found throughout the United States, from the Gulf of Mexico on the south and the Atlantic on the east to the Rocky Mountains, and is met with as far to the north as the 61st parallel of latitude. Sir John Richardson found it common in the fur countries, being the only Woodpecker that visits those regions in flocks. He observed the Yellow-bellied Woodpecker on the north shore of Lake Huron on the 14th of April, in 1825, and in 1827 it made its first appearance for the season, on the plains of the Saskatchewan, on the 14th of May. Swainson received specimens of this Woodpecker from Mexico. De la Sagra and Dr. Gundlach both give it in their list of Cuban birds, though not as breeding on that island. Gosse obtained several specimens in the months of December, January, and February, in Jamaica, where he regarded it as only a winter migrant from the northern continent. It is not given by the Newtons among the birds of St. Croix, but appears in Sclater’s list of the birds of Central America, on the authority of Mr. George M. Skinner. Two specimens have been taken in Greenland.
Wilson, in his account of its breeding habits, speaks of it as a resident bird from Cayenne to Hudson’s Bay, as being common in the States of Kentucky and Ohio, and as having been found in the neighborhood of St. Louis. He describes the habits of this species as similar to those of the Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers, with which it generally associates. The only nest of this bird which Wilson ever met with was in the body of an old pear-tree, about ten or eleven feet from the ground. The hole was almost exactly circular, small for the size of the bird, so that it crept in and out with difficulty; but the excavation suddenly widened, descending by a small angle, and then running downward about fifteen inches. On the smooth solid wood lay four white eggs. This was about the 25th of May.
Mr. Audubon, on the other hand, speaks of this species as returning to Louisiana and the other Southern States only about the beginning of October, remaining there during the winter, and again taking its departure before
the beginning of April, after which period he never observed it in those districts. A few only, according to the same authority, breed in Kentucky, but the greater number migrate to the more northern parts of the Union. He describes it, in its habits, as preferring the interior of the forest during the spring and summer, seldom showing itself near the habitation of man at those seasons. It generally, he adds, bores its nest at a considerable height, and usually in the trunk of an undecayed tree, immediately beneath a large branch, and on its southern side. The hole is worked out by the male as well as the female, in the manner followed by the other species, and to the depth of from fifteen to twenty-four inches. The aperture is just large enough to admit the birds, but the whole widens gradually towards the bottom, where it is large and roomy. The eggs, which are from four to six, and pure white, with a slight blush, are deposited on the chips without any nest. The young seldom leave the hole until they are fully fledged.
Mr. Audubon elsewhere speaks of having found this species extremely abundant in the upper parts of the State of Maine and in the Provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick; but he saw none in Newfoundland or Labrador.
For my specimens of the eggs of this species and valuable information as to its habits, I am indebted to Mr. Charles S. Paine, of East Bethel, Vt., in which State it seems to be quite abundant. In a letter written in the summer of 1860, he furnishes the results of his observations relative to their habits, so far as they have fallen under his notice.
The Yellow-bellied Woodpeckers reach the central and northern parts of that State about the 10th of April. They soon make their presence known there by their loud and continued drumming, rather than tapping, on the trunks and larger branches of decaying trees. Of this drumming they seem to be peculiarly fond, especially where they can produce a loud ringing sound. Sometimes, when Mr. Paine had been engaged in the process of preparing maple sugar, he had left a few empty wooden buckets hanging on the branches of trees, until needed for use. Upon these the bird will drum, apparently with the greatest delight. At times they would experiment upon the tin pails, but, being unable to obtain good standing-ground, they did not follow it up. On such occasions their drumming did not appear to be done in the pursuit of worms or food, but was very evidently for their own entertainment, or in a spirit of rivalry one with another, as if seeking to please their mates. When two male birds meet, they pursue each other through the woods with great clamor. They have a loud, distinct, and lively note, but their favorite music appears to be this drumming. They mate and commence the excavation of their nests the last week in April. Their eggs are usually deposited, in this section, somewhere between the 20th of May and the first of June. The excavations for their nests are usually made in the tops of large decaying trees. He adds that he found four or five of these nests that year. The eggs of one of these he was able to obtain without
much trouble, the others had hatched. When the young leave their nests they usually keep together, and often four or five may be seen playing about the bark of the same tree while waiting for their parents to bring them their food.
This species is far more abundant at the West than it is in the New England States. In the States of Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts it is very rarely met with. It is commonly known as the Sap-Sucker, and much better deserves that name than do other species to which this term is also applied. Owing to the peculiar formation of its tongue and the muscles connected with it, it feeds less readily upon insects, and they form a smaller proportion of its food. In the spring of the year these birds prey largely upon the inner bark of trees, and where they exist in great numbers often do a great deal of mischief. In April, 1868, I visited gardens in Racine, in company with Dr. Hoy, where these Woodpeckers had every successive spring committed their ravages, and was eyewitness to their performance. Their punctures were unlike those of the pubescens, being much deeper, penetrating the inner bark, and, being repeated in close proximity, becomes entirely stripped off after a while, often resulting in the girdling and complete destruction of the tree. In one garden of some considerable size, all the mountain-ash and white-pine trees had thus been killed. In prairie countries, where trees are a deficiency and their cultivation both important and attended with difficulty, these birds prove a great pest, and in a few hours may destroy the labor of many years. These habits, so well known to most of our Western farmers, appear to have entirely escaped the notice of our older ornithologists.
Mr. Dresser found these birds near San Antonio at all seasons of the year, but rather rare. He shot a couple near the Medina River, and Dr. Heermann also procured the eggs in that neighborhood.
Mr. Ridgway says that in Southern Illinois this Woodpecker is only a winter resident, coming from the north in September or October, and departing in April. It is the only one of the eight species of Woodpeckers of that section which does not breed there, and also the only one which is not resident.
Specimens of its eggs from Vermont measure .95 by .70 of an inch. They are of an oval shape, a little less rounded at one end than at the other.
Sphyropicus varius, var. nuchalis, Baird.
THE RED-NAPED WOODPECKER.
Sphyropicus varius, var. nuchalis, Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 103, pl. xxxv, figs. 1, 2. Sphyropicus nuchalis, Baird, Ib. 921.—Coues, Pr. A. N. Sc. 1866, 53.—Cooper, Pr. Cal. Ac. 1861, 122.—Cass. P. A. N. S. 1863, 204.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 390. Picus varius occidentalis, Sundevall, Consp. Pic. 1866, 34. Cladoscopus nuchalis, Cab. & Hein. 82.
Sp. Char. Markings, generally, as in S. varius. A red nuchal crescent. Belly yellowish-white. The red of the throat extending over and obliterating the black stripe from the lower mandible, except on the side of the jaw. Post-ocular black patch tinged with red. Secondaries with little or no white on outer webs. Tail-feathers black, scarcely varied; the innermost with inner web, as in varius. Female similar, but with the chin white; the throat red, bordered, as in male, by a black stripe from the bill to the black pectoral patch. Length, 8.00; wing, 5.00; tail, 3.50.
Hab. Middle Province of United States. Localities: Fort Mohave (Cooper, Pr. Cal. Ac. 1861, 122); W. Arizona (Coues, P. A. N. S. 1866, 53).
This bird, first indicated as a simple variety of S. varius, is yet as decidedly distinct and constant in its markings as a large number of what are considered to be valid species. The principal differences from varius have been mentioned above: they consist mainly in the greater development of red, as seen in wider throat-patch; nuchal crescent; tinge on cheek; a greater amount of black, shown in unspotted outer webs of secondaries and blacker tail, and in the paler colors below. The most striking peculiarity is in the half-red throat of the female, which is entirely white in varius. The light markings of the back are more distinctly arranged in two lines enclosing a median of black, which show no concealed white spots as in varius. The breast is much paler, only slightly tinged with yellow, instead of the rich color to which S. varius owes its trivial name.
Young birds vary in color to the same excessive degree as in varius.
Habits. This form, closely allied to the varius, was at first known only from the southern Rocky Mountains. Afterwards a large number of specimens were obtained by Mr. C. Drexler at Fort Bridger, in Utah.
Dr. Cooper procured a female specimen of this species at Fort Mohave, on the 20th of February, 1861, which had probably wandered in a storm from the mountains, and which was the only one he met with. Dr. Heermann states, also, that they were not rare at Fort Yuma. Dr. Cooper’s bird was silent and inactive, as if exhausted by a long flight. He also saw these birds rather common as he crossed the mountains near latitude 48° in September, 1860, and noticed a great similarity in their habits to those of the S. varius. They chiefly frequented small deciduous trees, fed in the usual manner of other Woodpeckers, and had also a shrill, unvaried call or note of alarm.
Dr. Coues found this Woodpecker an abundant and a permanent resident in Arizona. Its distinctness as a species he did not question. Everywhere common, it seemed to prefer live cottonwood-trees and willows. Two specimens of this race have been taken in New England,—one in New Hampshire by Mr. William Brewster, the other in Cambridge by Mr. Henshaw.
The Red-naped Woodpecker was found by Mr. Ridgway to be one of the most abundant and characteristic species of the Wahsatch and Uintah Mountains. It was also found, in greater or less numbers, throughout the Great Basin, in the region of his route, and was even obtained on the eastern Sierra Nevada, where, however, only one specimen was seen. Its favorite resort, during summer, was the aspen groves in the mountains, at an altitude
averaging about seven thousand feet; and even when pine woods were near the aspens were invariably chosen as nesting-places. Its excavations were always in living trees, and the abandoned ones were taken possession of by Purple Martins and White-bellied Swallows (Progne subis and Tachycineta bicolor) as nesting-places. In winter it was found among the cottonwoods and willows of the river valleys. Its habits, manners, and notes are described as almost perfectly similar to those of S. varius.
Sphyropicus varius, var. ruber, Baird.
THE RED-BREASTED WOODPECKER.
Picus ruber, Gm. Syst. Nat. I, 1788, 429.—Wagler, Syst. Av. 1827, No. 151.—Aud. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 179, pl. ccccxvi.—Ib. Birds Amer. IV, 1842, 261, pl. cclxvi.—Sundevall, Consp. Pic. 32. Melanerpes ruber, Rich. List, Pr. Br. Assoc. for 1835.—Bonap. List, 1838.—Ib. Consp. 1850, 115. Pilumnus ruber, Bon. Consp. Zyg. Aten. Ital. 1854, 8. Picus flaviventris, Vieillot, Ois. Am. Sept. II, 1807, 67. Sphyropicus ruber, Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 104.—Cooper & Suckley, 160.—Gray, Cat. 51.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 392. Cladoscopus ruber, Cab. & Hein. Mus. Hein. IV, 1863, 82.
Sp. Char. Fourth quill longest; third intermediate between fourth and fifth. Bill brown wax-color. Head and neck all round, and breast, carmine-red. Above black, central line of back from nape to rump spotted with whitish; rump, wing-coverts, and inner web of the inner tail-feathers white, the latter with a series of round black spots. Belly sulphur-yellow, streaked with brown on the sides. Narrow space around and a little in front of the eye black. A yellowish stripe from the nostrils, a short distance below and behind the eye. Length, about 8.50; wing, 5.00; tail, 3.40. Sexes similar.
Hab. Pacific slopes of the United States.
As stated in the remarks before the synopsis on page 1133, there is every reason for considering this as merely a geographical race of a species, of which nuchalis and varius are the other forms. The differences from varius consist merely in an excessive amount of red, this obliterating the normal pattern of the cephalic portions; and in an increased amount of black, or a manifestation of the melanistic tendency so often distinguishing birds of the Pacific coast region from their eastern co-specific representatives.
S. nuchalis is exactly intermediate in all respects between S. ruber and S. varius,—the extremes,—while each of the latter is connected with the intermediate race by specimens combining the characters of both races.
Habits. The geographical distribution of this form seems to be restricted to the Pacific coast region.
Dr. Cooper only met with these birds three times in Washington Territory. This was in spring and fall. He speaks of them as being very shy, silent, and retiring, remaining among the dense tops of the dark forest trees. Whether it resides and breeds in the Territory he had no means of determining. Dr. Suckley saw but one specimen, and regarded it as confined, for the most part, to the close vicinity of the coast.
Mr. Audubon assigns to it the same distribution, but is only able to give the information in regard to its habits which he derived from the observations of Mr. Nuttall, which, however, do not correspond with those of Dr. Cooper. Mr. Nuttall states that this species, seen in the forests of the Columbia and the Blue Mountains, has most of the habits of the common Red-headed species. He concedes that it is less familiar, and that it keeps generally among the tall fir-trees, in the dead trunks of which it burrows out a hole for a nest, sometimes at a great elevation. On approaching one that was feeding its young in one of these situations, it uttered a loud reverberating t’rr, and seemed angry and solicitous at his approach. He adds that this species also inhabits California, as well as the northwest coast up to Nootka, and that it is found eastward as far as the central chain of the Rocky Mountains. An egg taken from a nest which contained four was 1.25 in length and .75 of an inch in breadth. It was smooth, equally rounded at both ends, though somewhat elongated, and pure white.
We are confident that there must be some mistake in this statement. The disproportion between the length and the breadth is unprecedented. Even in the most oblong egg there is rarely so much as twenty-five per cent difference.
Dr. Cooper, in his Birds of California, speaks of it as rather a northern bird, having seen none south of Santa Clara, and there only in the mountains of the Coast Range in early spring.
Dr. Heermann found this form not at all rare in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and occasionally met a stray one among the valleys. Their call-note was similar to the cry of a child in distress, and was very disagreeable. In their quick, restless motions, and their untiring diligence in quest of food, they resemble the rest of the Woodpecker family.
It was noticed by Mr. Ridgway only on the Sierra Nevada, and he is not certain that he saw it on the eastern slope of that range.
Sphyropicus williamsoni, Baird.
WILLIAMSON’S WOODPECKER.
Picus williamsoni, Newberry, Zoöl. California and Oregon Route, 89, P. R. R. Repts. VI, 1857, pl. xxxiv, fig. 1.—Sundevall, Consp. 32. Melanerpes rubrigularis, Scl. Annals and Mag. N. H. 3d series, I, Feb. 1858, 127.—Pr. Zoöl. Soc. 1858, 2, pl. cxxxi. Sphyropicus williamsoni, Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 105, pl. xxxiv, f. 1.—Coues, Pr. 1866, 54.—Cass. P. A. N. S. 1863, 204.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 393. Cladoscopus williamsoni, Cab. & Hein. Mus. Hein. IV, 1863, 82. Melanerpes williamsoni, Gray, Catal. Br. Mus. 1868, 116.
Sp. Char. Rich black; middle line of belly yellow; central line of chin and throat above red. A large patch on the wing, rump, and upper tail-coverts, a line from the forehead beneath the eye, and another from its upper border, white. Tail entirely black. Exposed
surface of quills without any white, except on the outer primaries. Female with the chin white instead of red. Length, 9.00; wing, 5.00; tail, 4.70.
Hab. Rocky Mountains to the Cascade Mountains, Sierra Nevada. Localities: West Arizona (Coues, P. A. N. S. 1866, 54).
Head and neck all round, sides of breast and body, upper parts generally, wings, and tail, glossy greenish-black. A well-defined white stripe from the nostrils (including the bristly nasal feathers) passing backwards under the eye; another, nearly parallel, starting at the upper part of the eye, and nearly meeting its fellow on the occiput. Chin and throat red along their central line. A large patch on the wing, including the exposed portions of the middle and greater coverts, white, although the anterior lesser coverts are black. The inner face of the wings, excepting the smaller coverts, is black, banded transversely on the inner primaries with white; the sides of body behind and under tail-coverts white, with broadly V-shaped bands of black, which color on the latter occupies the whole central portion of the feathers. Rump and upper tail-coverts pure white; back with a few indistinct and concealed spots of the same. Quills black; the margins of exterior primaries spotted with white, the inner margins only of the remaining quills with similar but larger and more transverse blotches. Middle of the body, from the breast to the vent, sulphur-yellow, with the exception of the type which had been preserved in alcohol (which sometimes extracts the red of feathers). We have seen no specimen (except young birds, marked female), in a considerable number, without red on the chin, and are inclined to think that both sexes exhibit this character. Young birds from the Rocky Mountains are very similar to the adult, but have the throat marked white, and the inner web of innermost tail-feather banded with the same color. No. 16,090, ♂ ad. (Fort Crook, California), has a single crimson feather in the middle of the forehead.
Habits. This comparatively new species of Woodpecker was first discovered by Dr. Newberry in the pine forest on the eastern border of the upper Klamath Lake. Its habits appeared to him to be very similar to those of P. harrisi and P. gairdneri, which inhabit the same region. The individual he procured was creeping up the trunk of a large yellow pine (P. brachyptera), searching for insects in the bark. Its cry was very like that of P. harrisi. Although killed by the first fire, a second discharge was required to detach it from the limb to which it clung fast.
According to Dr. Coues, it is resident and not uncommon in the Territory of Arizona, occurring exclusively among the pine-trees. It is said to range from both slopes of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, from as far north at least as Oregon. Fort Whipple is supposed to be about its southern limit. Dr. Coues states that this species possesses the anatomical peculiarities of the S. varius, and that its habits entirely correspond. Mr. Allen found it abundant on the sides of Mount Lincoln, in Colorado Territory.
Dr. Cooper met with a straggler of this species in the valley of the Colorado,
shot on the 12th of March, 1861. In September, 1863, he found them rather common near the summit of the Sierra Nevada, latitude 39°, where he shot two. It has since been met with at Laramie Peak, and near the mouth of the Klamath River.
It was found by Mr. Ridgway on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada, and again on the Wahsatch Mountains; in both regions inhabiting the pine forests exclusively, and in neither place at all common. It occurred so seldom that Mr. Ridgway could learn but little concerning the peculiarities of its habits, etc. Its common note is a plaintive wailing squeal, much like that of S. varius (common to all the members of the genus), but other notes were heard which were quite peculiar.
Sphyropicus thyroideus, Baird.
BROWN-HEADED WOODPECKER.
Picus thyroideus, Cassin, Pr. A. N. Sc. V, Dec. 1851, 349 (California).—Heermann, J. A. N. Sc. Ph. 2d ser. II, 1853, 270.—Sundevall, Consp. 32. Melanerpes thyroideus, Cassin, Ill. I, 1854, 201, pl. xxxii. Pilumnus thyroideus, Bon. Consp. Zygod. Aten. Ital. 1854, 8. Sphyropicus thyroideus, Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 106—Elliot, Ill. Birds N. Am. II, pl.—Coues, P. A. N. S. 1866, 54.—Cass. P. A. N. S. 1863, 204.—Gray, Cat. 52.—Elliot, B. Am. I, pl. xxxv.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 394. ? ? Picus nataliæ, Malherbe, Cab. Journ. f. Ornith. 1854, 171.
Sp. Char. About the size of P. varius. Head dark ashy-brown; general color ashy-brown; head and neck scarcely marked; middle line of belly sulphur-yellow; rump and upper coverts pure white; rest of body apparently encircled by narrow transverse and continuous bands (crossing the wings and tail) of black, the outer spaces becoming whiter behind; a large round black patch on the breast. No red on top of the head. Male with reddish chin. Length, about 9.00; wing, 5.00; tail, 4.10.
Hab. Cascade and Coast Ranges of California and Oregon; Sierra Nevada, Wahsatch, and Rocky Mountains. Localities: West Arizona (Coues, P. A. N. S. 1866, 54).
In addition to the characters already assigned, the crown of the head is indistinctly streaked or spotted with black. The under coverts are barred with black. The tail-feathers are black, the inner and outer barred transversely with white on both webs; the shafts, however, entirely black. The quills are all spotted with white on both webs.
The jugular black patch shows more or less indication of the transverse bands, and is sometimes wanting, leaving the bands distinct. In one specimen (38,285 ♀, Laramie Peak) it is remarkably large and almost unbroken, while the black malar stripe is decidedly indicated; on the back the black bars much exceed in width the light ones, which are nearly white. The generic rictal white stripe is usually inappreciable, as also the black maxillary one, although both can be detected in some specimens.
A young bird is not appreciably different from the adult.
Habits. Dr. Cooper regards this bird as quite a rare species. He has never met with it, and doubts if it is ever found so far south as San Francisco.
Mr. J. G. Bell, of New York, was the first to meet with this bird in the Lower Sierra Nevada.
Dr. Heermann procured specimens among the southern mines, near the Colorado River, where they were especially frequenting the pine-trees in search of their food. He saw none of them alight on an oak, though those trees were abundant in that locality. It has since been met with near Fort Crook, and Dr. Cooper thinks it probable they may be more common in the mountains of Eastern Oregon and in those of Central Utah.
Dr. Coues says that it is resident, but very rare, in Arizona. It frequents pine-trees by preference. Its range is said to include both slopes of the Rocky Mountains, from Oregon to the Rio Grande, and probably to Sonora.
Mr. Ridgway met with this rare Woodpecker on the Sierra Nevada and Wahsatch Mountains, where it inhabited the same woods with the S. williamsoni; it appeared to have the same manners and notes as that species, but it was so seldom met with that nothing satisfactory could be learned concerning its habits. Its conspicuously barred coloration gives it much the appearance of a Centurus, when flying.
Genus HYLOTOMUS, Baird.
Dryotomus, Malherbe, Mém. Ac. Metz, 1849, 322. (Not of Swainson, 1831.)
Dryopicus, Bonap. Consp. Zygod. in Aten. Ital. May, 1854. (Not of Malherbe.)
Hylatomus, Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 107. (Type, Picus pileatus.)
Phlæotomus, Cab. & Hein. 1863. (Same type.)
Gen. Char. Bill a little longer than the head; considerably depressed, or broader than high at the base; shaped much as in Campephilus, except shorter, and without the bristly feathers directed forwards at the base of the lower jaw. Gonys about half the length of the commissure. Tarsus shorter than any toe, except the inner posterior. Outer posterior toe shorter than the outer anterior, and a little longer than the inner anterior. Inner posterior very short, not half the outer anterior; about half the inner anterior one. Tail long, graduated; the longer feathers much incurved at the tip. Wing longer than the tail, reaching to the middle of the exposed surface of tail; considerably graduated, though pointed; the fourth and fifth quills longest. Color uniform black. Head with pointed occipital crest. A stripe from nasal tufts beneath the eye and down side of neck, throat, lining of wing, and basal portion of under surface of quills, white; some species with the abdomen and sides barred black and brownish-white; others with a white scapular stripe in addition. Male with whole crown and crest and maxillary patch red; female with only the crest red.
This genus is similar in general appearance and size to Campephilus, but differs essentially in many respects; the differences being, however, mostly those which distinguish all other Woodpeckers from the species of Campephilus, which is unique in the peculiar structure of the tail-feathers, the great graduation of the tertials (sixth, instead of third or fourth, longest), and very long gonys with the flat tuft of hair like feathers at its base. The less development of the outer hind toe in Hylotomus, which is about exactly intermediate
between the outer and inner anterior, the outer largest, instead of being longest, and having the outer anterior intermediate between it and the inner, the shorter bill, the gonys fully half the length of the commissure, are additional distinctive features.
Hylotomus pileatus.
1723 ♀
Of Hylotomus there are several species in tropical America, all differing, however, in transversely banded lower parts, while some have a broad white scapular stripe; in these features of coloration (but in these only, for the head pattern is always much as in the H. pileatus) they resemble closely species of Campephilus (C. guatemalensis, C. albirostris, C. malherbei, etc.,) found in the same region; one (H. scapularis, of Mexico) even has a whitish ivory-like bill. They may all be distinguished from the species of Campephilus, however, by the generic differences.
BLACK WOODCOCK; LOG-COCK.
Picus pileatus, Linn. Syst. Nat. I. 1766, 173.—Vieillot, Ois. Am. Sept. II, 1807, 58, pl. cx.—Wilson, Am. Orn. IV, 1811, 27, pl. xxix, f. 2.—Wagler, Syst. Av. 1827, No. 2.—Aud. Orn. Biog. II, 1834, 74; V, 533, pl. cxi.—Ib. Birds Amer. IV, 1842, 266, pl. cclvii.—Maxim. Cab. Jour. VI. 1858, 352.—Sundevall, Consp. 8. Picus (Dryotomus) pileatus, Sw. F. Bor. Am. II, 1831, 304. Dryotomus pileatus, Bp. List, 1838. Dryocopus pileatus, Bonap. Consp. Av. 1850, 132. Dryopicus pileatus, Bon. Consp. Zyg. Aten. Ital. I.—Sclater, Catal. 1862, 332.—Gray, Catal. 59. Pileated Woodpecker, Pennant.—Latham. Hylotomus pileatus, Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 107.—Lord, Pr. R. Art. Inst. IV, 212.—Cooper & Suckley, 161.—Dresser, Ibis, 1865, 469 (E. Texas, but not Rio Grande).—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 396. Ceophloeus pileatus, Cab. Jour. 1862, 176. (Hylotoma, preoccupied by Latreille!!) Cab. & Hein. Mus. Hein. IV, II, 1863.—Samuels, 99.—Allen, B. E. Fla. 302.
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.
Rev. Dr. Bachman gives an interesting account of a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers building a nest in an old elm-tree in a swamp, and occupying it the first year. Early the next spring two Bluebirds took possession of
it, and there had young. Before they were half grown the Woodpeckers returned to the place, and, despite the cries and reiterated attacks of the Bluebirds, took out the young and carried them away to some distance. Next, the nest itself was disposed of, the hole cleaned and enlarged, and there they raised their brood. The tree was large, but so situated that Dr. Bachman could reach the nest from the branches of another. The hole was eighteen inches deep, and he could touch the bottom with his hand. The eggs, six in number, were laid on fragments of chips expressly left by the birds, and were large, white, and translucent. Before the Woodpeckers began to sit, he robbed them of their eggs to see if they would lay a second time. They waited a few days as if undecided, and then he heard the female at work again, deepening the hole and making it broader at the bottom. She soon recommenced laying, this time depositing five eggs. He suffered her to bring out her young, both birds alternately incubating, and each visiting the other at intervals, looking in at the hole to see if all were right and well there, and flying off afterwards in search of food. When the young were old enough, he took them home and endeavored to raise them. Three died, refusing all food. With two he was more successful. But even these he found untamable and destructive and troublesome pets, which he was at last glad to release.
Dr. Cooper, who observed this species in Washington Territory, discovered a pair early in April on Whitby’s Island, burrowing out a hole for their nest in a dead trunk, about thirty feet from the ground. They worked alternately, and were very watchful, keeping perfectly silent while they heard any noise near by. He found the place by noticing chips on the bushes below, and after watching silently for some time, one of them began to work, now and then protruding its bill full of chips, and, after cautiously looking round, dropping them.
According to Mr. C. S. Paine, of Randolph, Vt., the Pileated Woodpecker is very rare in Vermont, and extremely shy. It is difficult to approach one nearer than from fifteen to twenty rods, except by surprise. He adds that in only a single instance has he been able to shoot one. This fell with a broken wing. Before he could reach it, the bird commenced climbing a tree, and nearly escaped. When overtaken, it fought furiously, and wounded Mr. Paine severely in the hand, setting up at the same time a loud outcry, not unlike that of a domestic hen. He has never met with its nest, although he has several times seen the young when just able to leave it. The elder Mr. Paine states that, some fifty years previous, this species was abundant in Vermont, and not at all timid, and is of the opinion that their present shyness is all that exempts them from extermination.
Mr. Dresser found this Woodpecker resident and quite numerous in Texas near all the large rivers, where the timber is heavy. A few were seen on the Medina, and their eggs obtained there, but they were not abundant in that district. On the Colorado and Brazos Rivers these birds were very common,
and Mr. Dresser found several nests in huge cottonwood-trees, but had no means of getting to them.
Mr. J. K. Lord assigns to this species a wide western range, being common both east and west of the Cascades, and on the west slope of the Rocky Mountains. He met with it north as far as Fort Rupert in Vancouver Island, and south through Oregon and California. He found them at Colville during the winter. He states that they nest in May, generally in a tall dead pine-tree, at a great height.
For my first specimens of the eggs of this species I am under obligations to Dr. Cornelius Kollock, of Cheraw, S. C. They were obtained by him from excavations made in large trees at the height of about twenty-five feet from the ground, and in localities at no great distance from the inhabited parts of the country.
The eggs of this species from South Carolina and Florida are of a very brilliant crystalline whiteness, of a rounded-oval shape, and measure 1.25 inches in length by 1.02 in breadth. Northern specimens are probably larger.
Section CENTUREÆ.
The United States genera of this section are very similar to each other, and may be most easily distinguished by color, as follows:—
Centurus. Back and wings banded transversely with black and white. Crown more or less red; rest of head with under parts grayish, and with red or yellow tinge on the middle of the abdomen. Rump white.
Melanerpes. Upper parts uniform black, without bands, with or without a white rump; variable beneath, but without transverse bands.
Genus CENTURUS, Swainson.
Centurus, Sw. Class. Birds, II, 1837, 310. (Type, C. carolinus.)
Zebrapicus, Malh. Mém. Acad. Metz, 1849, 360. (Type, C. carolinus.)
Gen. Char. Bill about the length of the head, or a little longer; decidedly compressed, except at the extreme base. A lateral ridge starting a little below the culmen at the base of the bill, and angular for half the length of the bill, then becoming obsolete, though traceable nearly to the tip. Culmen considerably curved from the base; gonys nearly straight. Nostrils very broad, elliptical; situated about midway on the side of the mandible, near the base; partly concealed. Outer pairs of toes unequal, the anterior toe longest. Wings long, broad; third to fifth primaries equal and longest. Tail-feathers rather narrow, stiffened.
The species are all banded above transversely with black and white; the rump white. The head and under parts are brown, or grayish, the latter sometimes much the lighter. The belly with a red or yellow tinge. The under tail-coverts with V-shaped dark marks. The North American species of Centurus may be arranged as follows:—
C. carolinus. Middle of belly reddish; whole crown and nape red in male. Nape, only, red in female.
Forehead reddish; beneath soiled ashy-white; abdomen pinkish-red; crissum with sagittate marks of dusky. Wing, 5.25; tail, 3.80; bill, 1.30. Hab. Eastern Province United States … var. carolinus.
Forehead smoky-white; beneath smoky-olive, middle of abdomen carmine-red; crissum with broad transverse bars of dusky. Wing, 4.50; tail, 2.60; bill, 1.08. Hab. Central America; Venezuela … var. tricolor.[129]
C. aurifrons. Middle of belly yellowish; red of crown, in male, confined to an ovoid vertical patch. Nape and forehead gamboge-yellow; white of rump and upper tail-coverts immaculate. Female without any red on the crown.
Inner webs of middle tail-feathers unvariegated black. Lower parts dirty ashy-whitish, abdomen dilute gamboge-yellow. Wing, 5.20; tail, 3.60; bill, 1.50. Hab. Eastern Mexico, north to the Rio Grande … var. aurifrons.
Inner webs of middle tail-feathers spotted with white. Lower parts smoky-olive, belly bright orange-yellow. Wing, 4.70; tail, 2.80; bill, 1.16. Hab. Costa Rica … var. hoffmanni.[130]
C. uropygialis. Middle of the belly yellowish. Nape and forehead soft smoky grayish-brown. Female without red or yellow on head. White of rump and upper tail-coverts with transverse dusky bars. Inner webs of middle tail-feathers spotted with white. Wing, 5.30; tail, 3.70; bill, 1.35. Hab. Western Mexico, north into Colorado, region of Middle Province of United States.
PLATE LII.
1. Centurus carolinus. ♂ Pa., 868.
2. Centurus uropygialis. ♂ Ariz., 6128.
3. Centurus aurifrons. ♂ Texas, 6121.
4. Centurus carolinus. ♀ 6118.
5. Centurus uropygialis. ♀ Ariz.
6. Centurus aurifrons. ♀ Texas.
Centurus carolinus, Bonap.
RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER.
Picus carolinus, Linn. Syst. Nat. I, 1766, 174.—Wilson, Am. Orn. I, 1808, 113, pl. vii, f. 2.—Aud. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 169, pl. ccccxv.—Ib. Birds Amer. IV, 1842, 270, pl. cclxx.—Max. Cab. Jour. 1858, 418.—Sundevall, Consp. 53. Centurus carolinus, Sw. Bp. List, 1838.—Ib. Conspectus, Av. 1850, 119.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 109.—Cab. Jour. 1862, 324.—Dresser, Ibis, 1865, 469 (resident in Texas).—Scl. Cat. 1862, 342.—Gray, Cat. 99.—Allen, B. E. Fla. 306. Centurus carolinensis, Sw. Birds, II, 1837, 310 (error). Picus griseus, Vieill. Ois. Am. Sept. II, 1807, 52, pl. cxvi. ? Picus erythrauchen, Wagler, Syst. Avium, 1827. Picus zebra, Boddært, Tabl. pl. enl. (Gray, genera).
Sp. Char. Third, fourth, and fifth quills nearly equal, and longest; second, or outermost, and seventh about equal. Top of the head and nape crimson-red. Forehead whitish, strongly tinged with light red, a shade of which is also seen on the cheek, still stronger on the middle of the belly. Under parts brownish-white, with a faint wash of yellowish on the belly. Back, rump, and wing-coverts banded black and white; upper tail-covert white, with occasional blotches. Tail-feathers black; first transversely banded with white; second less so; all the rest with whitish tips. Inner feathers banded with white on the
inner web; the outer web with a stripe of white along the middle. Length, 9.75; wing, about 5.00. Female with the crown ashy; forehead pale red; nape bright red.
Centurus carolinus.
865 ♂
Hab. North America, from Atlantic coast to the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. Localities: Texas (Dresser, Ibis, 1865, 469, resident).
Specimens vary considerably in size (with latitude), and in the tinge of reddish on chin, breast, etc. The width of the dorsal bands differs in different specimens. The rump is banded; upper tail-coverts are generally immaculate, but are sometimes dashed with black. Specimens from the Mississippi Valley are generally more brightly colored than those from the Atlantic States, the lower parts more strongly tinged with red. Florida examples are smaller than northern ones, the black bars broader, the lower parts deeper ashy and strongly tinged with red, but of a more purplish shade than in western ones.
Centurus carolinus.
Habits. The Red-bellied Woodpecker is distributed throughout North America, from the Atlantic Coast to the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. It is, however, much more abundant in the more southern and western portions. In the collections of the Smithsonian Institution none are recorded from farther north than Pennsylvania on the east and Nebraska Territory on the west, while others were obtained as far south as Florida. Nor am I aware that it is found, except very rarely, north of Pennsylvania on the Atlantic coast. I have never met with it in Eastern Massachusetts, although Mr. Audubon speaks of it as breeding from Maryland to Nova Scotia. Dr. Woodhouse found it common in the Indian Territory and in Texas. Wilson speaks of having found it abundant in Upper Canada, and in the northern parts of the State of New York. He also refers to its inhabiting the whole Atlantic States as far as Georgia and the southern extremity of Florida. Its absence in Eastern Massachusetts was noticed by Mr. Nuttall. It is not given by Thompson or Paine as
one of the birds of Vermont, nor does Lieutenant Bland mention it as one of the birds of Nova Scotia, and it is not included by Sir John Richardson in the Fauna Boreali-Americana.
Mr. Audubon speaks of it as generally more confined to the interior of forests than the Hairy Woodpecker, especially during the breeding-season. He further states that he never met with its nest in Louisiana or South Carolina, but that it was not rare in Kentucky, and that, from the State of Maryland to Nova Scotia, it breeds in all convenient places, usually more in the woods than out of them. He also states that he has found the nests in orchards in Pennsylvania, generally not far from the junction of a branch with the trunk. He describes the hole as bored in the ordinary manner. The eggs are seldom more than four in number, and measure 1.06 inches in length and .75 of an inch in breadth. They are of an elliptical form, smooth, pure white, and translucent. They are not known to raise more than one brood in a season.
Wilson speaks of this species as more shy and less domestic than the Red-headed or any of the other spotted Woodpeckers, and also as more solitary. He adds that it prefers the largest high-timbered woods and the tallest decayed trees of the forest, seldom appearing near the ground, on the fences, or in orchards or open fields. In regard to their nesting, he says that the pair, in conjunction, dig out a circular cavity for the nest in the lower side of some lofty branch that makes a considerable angle with the horizon. Sometimes they excavate this in the solid wood, but more generally in a hollow limb, some fifteen inches above where it becomes solid. This is usually done early in April. The female lays five eggs, of a pure white, or almost semi-transparent. The young generally make their appearance towards the latter part of May. Wilson was of the opinion that they produced two broods in a season.
Mr. Dresser found this bird resident and abundant in Texas. It is also equally abundant in Louisiana and in Florida, and Mr. Ridgway considers it very common in Southern Illinois. Neither Mr. Boardman nor Mr. Verrill have found it in Maine. Mr. McIlwraith has, however, taken three specimens at Hamilton, Canada West, May 3, near Chatham. Mr. Allen gives it as a summer visitant in Western Massachusetts, having seen one on the 13th of May, 1863. It has also been taken several times in Connecticut, by Professor Emmons, who met with it, during the breeding-season, in the extreme western part of the State. Mr. Lawrence has found it near New York City, and Mr. Turnbull in Eastern Pennsylvania.
The eggs vary from an oblong to a somewhat rounded oval shape, are of a bright crystalline whiteness, and their measurements average 1.02 inches in length by .88 of an inch in breadth.
YELLOW-BELLIED WOODPECKER.
Picus aurifrons, Wagler, Isis, 1829, 512.—Sundevall, Consp. Pic. 53. Centurus aurifrons, Gray, Genera.—Cabanis, Jour. 1862, 323.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 399. Centurus flaviventris, Swainson, Anim. in Menag. 1838 (2½ centenaries), 354.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 110, pl. xlii.—Heermann, P. R. Rep. X, c, 18.—Dresser, Ibis, 1865, 469 (resident in Texas).—Ib. Rep. Mex. Bound. II, 5, pl. iv. Centurus elegans, Lawrence, Ann. N. Y. Lyc. V, May, 1851, 116. Centurus santacruzi, Lawrence, Ann. N. Y. Lyc. V, 1851, 123 (not ofBonap.). Picus ornatus, Less. Rev. Zoöl. 1839, 102.
Sp. Char. Fourth and fifth quills nearly equal; third a little shorter; longer than the fourth. Back banded transversely with black and white; rump and upper tail-coverts pure white. Crown with a subquadrate spot of crimson, about half an inch wide and long; and separated from the gamboge-yellow at the base of the bill by dirty white, from the orbit and occiput by brownish-ash. Nape half-way round the neck orange-yellow. Under part generally, and sides of head, dirty white. Middle of belly gamboge-yellow. Tail-feathers all entirely black, except the outer, which has some obscure bars of white. Length about 9.50; wing, 5.00. Female without the red of the crown.
Hab. Rio Grande region of the United States, south into Mexico. Probably Arizona. Localities: Orizaba (Scl. P. Z. S. 1860, 252); Texas, south of San Antonio (Dresser, Ibis, 1865, 469, resident).
Young birds are not different from adults, except in showing indication of dark shaft-lines beneath, becoming broader behind on the sides. The yellow of the nape extends over the whole side of the head.
Habits. This beautiful Woodpecker is abundant throughout the valley of the Rio Grande, from Eagle Pass to its mouth; how far to the west within our boundaries it occurs, I am not able to state. It is common throughout Mexico, and was found in the Guatemalan collection of Van Patten, though not mentioned by Sclater and Salvin. Dr. Woodhouse, in his Report on the zoölogy of Captain Sitgreaves’s expedition, speaks of finding it quite abundant in the neighborhood of San Antonio, Texas. He adds that west of the Rio San Pedro he did not meet with it. He speaks of it as having a loud, sharp cry, which it utters as it flies from tree to tree. He observed it mostly on the trunks of the mesquite (Algarobia), diligently searching in the usual manner of Woodpeckers. In the Report upon the birds of the Mexican Boundary Survey, it is mentioned by Mr. Clark as abundant on the Lower Rio Grande, as very shy, and as keeping chiefly about the mesquite. Lieutenant Couch speaks of it as very common throughout Tamaulipas.
Mr. Dresser found the Yellow-bellied Woodpecker plentiful from the Rio Grande to San Antonio, and as far north and east as the Guadaloupe, after which he lost sight of it. Wherever the mesquite-trees were large, there it was sure to be found, and very sparingly elsewhere. Near San Antonio it is quite common, but not so much so as the C. carolinus. At Eagle Pass, however, it was the more abundant of the two. He found it
breeding near San Antonio, boring for its nest-hole into a mesquite-tree. Mr. Dresser was informed by Dr. Heermann, who has seen many of their nests, that he never found them in any other tree.
These birds were found breeding by Dr. Berlandier, and his collection. contained quite a number of their eggs. Nothing was found among his papers in relation to their habits or their manner of breeding. Their eggs, procured by him, are of an oblong-oval shape, and measure 1.05 inches in length by .85 of an inch in breadth.
Centurus uropygialis, Baird.
GILA WOODPECKER.
Centurus uropygialis, Baird, Pr. A. N. Sc. Ph. VII, June, 1854, 120 (Bill Williams River, N. M.)—Ib. Birds N. Am. 1858, III, pl. xxxvi.—Cab. Jour. 1862, 330.—Sundevall, Consp. 54.—Kennerly, P. R. R. X, b pl. xxxvi.—Heermann, X, c, 17. Coues, Pr. Avi. 1866, 54 (S. Arizona).—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 399. Centurus hypopolius, (Bp.) Pucheran, Rev. et Mag. 1853, 163 (not Picus (Centurus) hypopolius, Wagler). Zebrapicus kaupii, Malherbe, 1855.—Gray, Catal. Br. Mex. Centurus sulfureiventer, Reichenbach, Handbuch, Picinæ, Oct. 1854, 410, figs. 4411, 4412.
Sp. Char. Third, fourth, and fifth quills longest, and about equal. Back, rump, and upper tail-coverts transversely barred with black and white, purest on the two latter. Head and neck all round pale dirty-brown, or brownish-ash, darkest above. A small subquadrate patch of red on the middle of the crown, separated from the bill by dirty white. Middle of the abdomen gamboge-yellow; under tail-coverts and anal region strongly barred with black. First and second outer tail-feathers banded black and white, as is also the inner web of the inner tail-feather; the outer web of the latter with a white stripe. Length, about 9.00; wing, 5.00. Female with the head uniform brownish-ash, without any red or yellow.
Hab. Lower Colorado River of the West, to Cape St. Lucas. South to Mazatlan. Localities: W. Arizona (Coues, P. A. N. S. 1866, 54).
Habits. This species was first discovered by Dr. Kennerly in his route along the 35th parallel, and described by Professor Baird, in 1854. The Doctor encountered it almost continually during the entire march along the Big Sandy, Bill Williams Fork, and the Great Colorado; but it was so very shy that he had great difficulty in procuring specimens. Seated in the top of the tree, it was ever on guard; and, upon the approach of danger, flew away, accompanying its flight with the utterance of very peculiar notes. Its flight was in an undulating line, like that of other birds of this class.
Dr. Heermann found this Woodpecker abundant on the banks of the Gila River among the mesquite-trees. The giant cactus, often forty feet high, which grows abundantly on the arid hillsides throughout that whole section of country, was frequently found filled with holes bored out by this bird. The pith of the plant is extracted until a chamber of suitable size is obtained, when the juice exuding from the wounded surface hardens, and forms a smooth dry coating to the cavity, thus making a convenient
place for the purposes of incubation. At Tucson, in Arizona, he found it frequenting the cornfields, where it might be seen alighting on the old hedge-posts in search of insects. Its note, he adds, resembles very much that of the Red-headed Woodpecker. He afterwards met with this bird in California, in considerable numbers, on the Colorado. Besides its ordinary notes, resembling those of the Melanerpes erythrocephalus, it varies them with a soft plaintive cry, as if hurt or wounded. He found their stomachs filled with the white gelatinous berry of a parasitic plant which grows abundantly on the mesquite-trees, and the fruit of which forms the principal food of many species of birds during the fall.
Dr. Coues gives this bird as rare and probably accidental in the immediate vicinity of Fort Whipple, but as a common bird in the valleys of the Gila and of the Lower Colorado, where it has the local name of Suwarrow, or Saguaro, on account of its partiality for the large cactuses, with the juice of which plant its plumage is often found stained.
Dr. Cooper found this Woodpecker abundant in winter at Fort Mohave, when they feed chiefly on the berries of the mistletoe, and are very shy. He rarely saw them pecking at the trees, but they seemed to depend for a living on insects, which were numerous on the foliage during the spring. They have a loud note of alarm, strikingly similar to that of the Phainopepla nitens, which associated with them in the mistletoe-boughs.
About the 25th of March he found them preparing their nests in burrows near the dead tops of trees, none of them, so far as he saw, being accessible. By the last of May they had entirely deserted the mistletoe, and were probably feeding their young on insects.
Genus MELANERPES, Swainson.
Melanerpes, Swainson, F. B. A. II, 1831. (Type, Picus erythrocephalus.)
Melampicus (Section 3), Malherbe, Mém. Ac. Metz, 1849, 365.
Asyndesmus, Coues, Pr. A. N. S. 1866, 55. (Type, Picus torquatus.)
Gen. Char. Bill about equal to the head; broader than high at the base, but becoming compressed immediately anterior to the commencement of the gonys. Culmen and gonys with a moderately decided angular ridge; both decidedly curved from the very base. A rather prominent acute ridge commences at the base of the mandible, a little below the ridge of the culmen, and proceeds but a short distance anterior to the nostrils (about one third of the way), when it sinks down, and the bill is then smooth. The lateral outlines are gently concave from the basal two thirds; then gently convex to the tip, which does not exhibit any abrupt bevelling. Nostrils open, broadly oval; not concealed by the feathers, nor entirely basal. Fork of chin less than half lower jaw. The outer pair of toes equal. Wings long, broad; lengthened. Tail-feathers broad, with lengthened points.
The species all have the back black, without any spots or streaks anywhere.
Melanerpes erythrocephalus.
883 ♀
Dr. Coues places M. torquatus in a new genus, Asyndesmus, characterized by a peculiar texture of the under part and nuchal collar, in which the
fibres are disconnected on their terminal portion, enlarged and stiffened, almost bristle-like; otherwise the characters are much as in Melanerpes. It should, however, be noted, that the feathers of the red portion of the head in the other species have the same texture.
Species and Varieties.
A. Sexes similar. Young very different from the adult.
M. torquatus. Feathers of the lower parts, as well as of frontal, lateral, and under portions of the head, with the fibres bristle-like. (Asyndesmus, Coues.) Upper parts wholly uniform, continuous, very metallic blackish-green. Adult. Forehead, lores, cheeks, and chin deep crimson, of a burnt-carmine tint; jugulum, breast, and a ring entirely around the nape, grayish-white; abdomen light carmine. Back glossed with purplish-bronze. Young without the red of the head, and lacking the grayish nuchal collar; abdomen only tinged with red, no purple or bronze tints above. Wing, 6.70; tail, 4.50. Hab. Western Province of the United States, from the Black Hills to the Pacific.
M. erythrocephalus. Feathers generally soft, blended; those of the whole head and neck with stiffened and bristle-like fibres in the adult. Secondaries, rump, and upper tail-coverts, with whole lower parts from the neck, continuous pure white. Two lateral tail-feathers tipped with white. Adult. Whole head and neck bright venous-crimson or blood-red, with a black convex posterior border across the jugulum; back, wings, and tail glossy blue-black. Young. Head and neck grayish, streaked with dusky; back and scapulars grayish, spotted with black; secondaries with two or three black bands; breast tinged with grayish, and with sparse dusky streaks. Wing, 5.90; tail, 3.90. Hab. Eastern Province of the United States, west to the Rocky Mountains.
B. Sexes dissimilar; young like the adult.
M. formicivorus. Forehead and a broad crescent across the middle of the throat (the two areas connected by a narrow strip across the lore), white, more or less tinged with sulphur-yellow. Rump, upper tail-coverts, abdomen,
sides, and crissum, with patch on base of primaries, pure white, the sides and breast with black streaks. Other portions glossy blue-black.
♂. Whole crown and nape carmine. ♀ with the occiput and nape alone red.
More than the anterior half of the pectoral band immaculate.
♀ with the white frontal, black coronal, and red occipital bands of about equal width. Forehead and throat only slightly tinged with sulphur-yellow. Wing, 5.80; tail, 3.90; bill, 1.27. Hab. Pacific Province of United States, and Northern and Western Mexico … var. formicivorus.
♀ with the white frontal band only about half as wide as the black coronal, which is only about half as wide as the red occipital, band or patch. Forehead and throat bright sulphur-yellow. Wing, 5.40; tail, 3.65; bill, 1.23. Hab. Lower California … var. angustifrons.
Nearly the whole of the black pectoral band variegated with white streaks.
Relative width of the white, black, and red areas on the crown as in formicivorus. Wing, 5.50; tail, 3.75; bill, 1.22. Hab. Middle America, south of Orizaba and Mirador … var. striatipectus.[131]
♂. Nape, only, red (as in females of preceding races); ♀ without any red.
Whole breast streaked, the black and white being in about equal amount. Wing, 5.70; tail, 3.90; bill, 1.20. Hab. New Granada … var. flavigula.[132]
Melanerpes torquatus, Bonap.
LEWIS’S WOODPECKER.
Picus torquatus, Wilson, Am. Orn. III, 1811, 31, pl. xx.—Wagler, Syst. Av. 1827, No. 82.—Aud. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 176, pl. ccccxvi.—Ib. Birds Amer. IV, 1842, 280, pl. cclxxii.—Sundevall, Consp. 51. Melanerpes torquatus, Bp. Consp. 1850, 115.—Heermann, J. A. N. Sc. Phil. 2d ser. II, 1853, 270.—Newberry, Zoöl. Cal. & Or. Route, 90, in P. R. R. Surv. VI, 1857.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 115.—Cooper & Suckley, 161.—Cassin. Pr. A. N. S. 1863, 327.—Lord, Pr. R. A. Inst. IV, 1864, 112 (nesting).—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 406. Picus montanus, Ord. in Guthrie’s Geog. 2d Am. ed. II, 1815, 316. Picus lewisii, Drapiez. (Gray.) Asyndesmus torquatus, Coues, Pr. A. N. S. 1866, 55.
Sp. Char. Feathers on the under parts bristle-like. Fourth quill longest; then third and fifth. Above dark glossy-green. Breast, lower part of the neck, and a narrow collar all round, hoary grayish-white. Around the base of the bill and sides of the head to
behind the eyes, dark crimson. Belly blood-red, streaked finely with hoary whitish. Wings and tail entirely uniform dark glossy-green. Female similar. Length about 10.50; wing, 6.50. Young without the nuchal collar, and the red of head replaced by black.
Hab. Western America from Black Hills to Pacific.
The peculiarities in the feathers of the under parts have already been adverted to. This structure appears to be essentially connected with the red feathers, since these have the same texture in the other species of the genus, wherever the color occurs. The remark may perhaps apply generally to the red feathers of most, if not all, Woodpeckers, and may be connected with some chemical or physical condition yet to be determined.
Habits. Lewis’s Woodpecker would seem to have a distribution throughout the Pacific Coast, from the sea-shore to the mountains, and from Puget Sound to the Gulf of California, and extending to the eastern border of the Great Plains, within the limits of the United States. They were first observed by Messrs. Lewis and Clarke, in their memorable journey to the Pacific. Subsequently Mr. Nuttall met with them in his westward journey, in the central chain of the Rocky Mountains. This was in the month of July. Among the cedar and pine woods of Bear River, on the edge of Upper California, he found them inhabiting the decayed trunks of the pine-trees, and already feeding their young. Afterwards, at the close of August, he met them in flocks on the plains, sixty miles up the Wahlamet. He describes them as very unlike Woodpeckers in their habits, perching in dense flocks, like Starlings, neither climbing branches nor tapping in the manner of their tribe, but darting after insects and devouring berries, like Thrushes. He saw them but seldom, either in the dense forests of the Columbia or in any settled part of California.
Townsend speaks of their arriving about the first of May on Bear River and the Columbia. Both sexes incubate, according to his observations.
Dr. Gambel first observed this Woodpecker in a belt of oak timber near the Mission of St. Gabriel, in California, and states that it was abundant. He also describes its habits as peculiar, and unlike the generality of Woodpeckers. Dr. Heermann, too, speaks of finding it in all the parts of California which he visited. Dr. Newberry, in his Notes on the zoölogy of Lieutenant Williamson’s expedition, refers to it as most unlike the California Woodpecker in the region it occupies and in its retiring habits. He describes it as seeming to choose, for its favorite haunts, the evergreen forests upon the rocky declivities of the Cascade and Rocky Mountains. He first observed it in Northern California, but subsequently noticed it in the mountains all the way to the Columbia. Though often seen in low elevations, it was evidently alpine in its preferences, and was found most frequently near the line of perpetual snow; and when crossing the snow lines, in the mountain-passes, it was often observed flying far above the party. He describes it as being always shy, and difficult to shoot.
Dr. S. W. Woodhouse describes this species as being common in the Indian
Territory and in New Mexico; while Dr. Cooper, in his Report on the zoölogy of Washington Territory, speaks of it as being common, during summer, in all the interior districts, but seldom or never approaching the coast. It arrives at Puget Sound early in May, and some even remain, during mild winters, in the Territory. According to his account, it burrows holes for its nests at all heights from the ground, but commonly in dead trees. The eggs are described as pure white, and, when fresh, translucent, like those of all the Woodpecker tribe, and hardly distinguishable in size and general appearance from those of the Golden-winged Woodpecker (Colaptes auratus). Its harsh call is rarely uttered in summer, when it seems to seek concealment for itself and nest. The flocks of young, which in fall associate together to the number of eight or ten, are more noisy. Dr. Suckley, in the same Report (page 162), speaks of this Woodpecker as being very abundant throughout the more open portions of the timbered region of the northwest coast, preferring oak openings and groves. At Fort Dalles, on the Columbia, they are extremely numerous, not only breeding there during summer, but also found as winter residents. Their breeding-places are generally holes in oak and other trees, which, from the appearance of all he examined, seemed to have been excavated for the purpose. At Puget Sound this species was found less frequently than at Fort Dalles, on the Columbia. At the latter place they were constant winter residents. Dr. Suckley also speaks of them as being semi-gregarious in their habits.
Mr. Lord thinks that this Woodpecker is not to be met with west of the Cascade Mountains, but says it is very often found between the Cascades and the Rocky Mountains, where it frequents the open timber. The habits and modes of flight of this bird, he states, are not the least like a Woodpecker’s. It flies with a heavy flapping motion, much like a Jay, feeds a good deal on the ground, and chases insects on the wing like a Shrike or a Kingbird. Whilst mating they assemble in large numbers, and keep up a continual, loud, chattering noise. They arrive at Colville in April, begin nesting in May, and leave again in October. The nest is in a hole in a dead pine-tree, usually at a considerable height from the ground.
Dr. Coues says this bird is very common at Fort Whipple, in Arizona, where it remained in moult until November.
Mr. J. A. Allen found this the most numerous of the Picidæ in Colorado Territory. He also states that it differs considerably in its habits from all the other Woodpeckers. He frequently noticed it rising high into the air almost vertically, and to a great height, apparently in pursuit of insects, and descending again as abruptly, to repeat the same manœuvre. It was met with by Mr. Ridgway in the Sacramento Valley, along the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada, and in the East Humboldt Mountains. In the first-mentioned locality it was the most abundant Woodpecker, and inhabited the scattered oaks of the plains. In the second region it was very abundant—perhaps more so than any other species—among the scattered pines along
the very base of the eastern slope; and in the last-mentioned place was observed on a few occasions among the tall aspens bordering the streams in the lower portions of the cañons. In its habits it is described as approaching most closely to our common Red-headed Woodpecker (M. erythrocephalus), but possessing many very distinctive peculiarities. In the character of its notes it quite closely approximates to our common Redhead, but they are weaker and of a more twittering character; and in its lively playful disposition it even exceeds it. It has a very peculiar and characteristic habit of ascending high into the air, and taking a strange, floating flight, seemingly laborious, as if struggling against the wind, and then descending in broad circles to the trees.
The eggs are more spherical than are usually those of the Colaptes auratus, are of a beautiful crystalline whiteness, and measure 1.10 inches in length and .92 of an inch in breadth.
Melanerpes erythrocephalus, Swainson.
RED-HEADED WOODPECKER.
Picus erythrocephalus, Linn. Syst. Nat. I, 1766, 174.—Vieillot, Ois. Am. Sept. II, 1807, 60, pl. cxii, cxiii.—Wilson, Am. Orn. I, 1810, 142, pl. ix, fig. 1.—Wagler, Syst. Av. 1827, No. 14.—Ib. Isis, 1829, 518 (young).—Aud. Orn. Biog. I, 1832, 141; V, 536, pl. xxvii.—Ib. Birds America, IV, 1842, 274, pl. cclxxi.—Max. Cab. J. VI, 1858, 419. Melanerpes erythrocephalus, Sw. F. B. A. II, 1831, 316.—Bon. List, 1838.—Ib. Conspectus, 1850, 115.—Gambel, J. Ac. Nat. Sc. Ph. 2d ser. I, 1847, 55.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 113.—Scl. Cat. 1862, 340.—Samuels, 102.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 402.—Allen, B. E. Fla. 307. Picus obscurus, Gm. I, 1788, 429 (young).—Red-headed Woodpecker, Pennant, Kalm, Latham. White-rumped Woodpecker, Latham.
Sp. Char. Head and neck all round crimson-red, margined by a narrow crescent of black on the upper part of the breast. Back, primary quills, and tail bluish-black. Under parts generally, a broad band across the middle of the wing, and the rump, white. The female is not different. Length, about 9.75; wing, 5.50. Bill bluish-white, darker terminally; iris chestnut; feet olive-gray. Young without any red, the head and neck being grayish streaked with dusky; breast with an ashy tinge, and streaked sparsely with dusky; secondaries with two or three bands of black; dorsal region clouded with grayish.
Hab. Eastern Province of United States to base of Rocky Mountains, sometimes straggling westward to coast of California (Gambel). Salt Lake City, Utah (Ridgway). Other localities: Nueces to Brazos, Texas (Dresser, Ibis, 1865, 469, breeds).
Western specimens frequently have the abdomen strongly tinged with salmon-red, or orange-red, and are generally more deeply colored than eastern.
Habits. The Red-headed Woodpecker is one of the most familiar birds of this family, and ranges over a wide extent of territory. Excepting where it has been exterminated by the persecutions of indiscriminate destroyers, it is everywhere a very abundant species. Once common, it is now rarely met
with in the neighborhood of Boston, though in the western part of Massachusetts it is still to be found. In the collections of the Smithsonian Institution are specimens from Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Louisiana, the Indian Territory, etc. Sir John Richardson speaks of it as ranging in summer as far north as the northern shores of Lake Huron. He also remarks that in the Hudson Bay Museum there is a specimen from the banks of the Columbia River. Dr. Gambel, in his paper on the birds of California, states that he saw many of them in a belt of oak timber near the Mission of St. Gabriel. As, however, Dr. Heermann did not meet with it in California, and as no other collector has obtained specimens in that State, this is probably a mistake. With the exception of Dr. Woodhouse, who speaks of having found this species in the Indian Territory and in Texas, it is not mentioned by any of the government exploring parties. It may therefore be assigned a range extending, in summer, as far north as Labrador, and westward to the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Throughout the year it is a permanent resident only of the more southern States, where it is, however, much less abundant in summer than it is in Pennsylvania.
Wilson, at the time of his writing (1808), speaks of finding several of the nests of this Woodpecker within the boundaries of the then city of Philadelphia, two of them being in buttonwood-trees and one in the decayed limb of an elm. The parent birds made regular excursions to the woods beyond the Schuylkill, and preserved a silence and circumspection in visiting their nest entirely unlike their habits in their wilder places of residence. The species is altogether migratory, visiting the Middle and Northern States early in May and leaving in October. It begins the construction of its nest almost immediately after its first appearance, as with other members of its family, by excavations made in the trunk or larger limbs of trees, depositing six white eggs on the bare wood. The cavities for their nests are made almost exclusively in dead wood, rarely, if ever, in the living portion of the tree. In Texas, Louisiana, Kentucky, and the Carolinas, they have two broods in a season, but farther north than this they rarely raise more than one. Their eggs are usually six in number, and, like all the eggs of this family, are pure white and translucent when fresh. They vary a little in their shape, but are usually slightly more oval and less spherical than those of several other species. Mr. Nuttall speaks of the eggs of this bird as being said to be marked at the larger end with reddish spots. I have never met with any thus marked, and as Mr. Nuttall does not give it as from his own observations I have no doubt that it is a mistake. Mr. Paine, of Randolph, Vt., writes that he has only seen a single specimen of this Woodpecker in that part of Vermont, while on the western side of the Green Mountains they are said to be very common. He adds that it is a tradition among his older neighbors that these Woodpeckers were formerly everywhere known throughout all portions of the State.
Mr. Ridgway saw a single individual of this species in the outskirts of Salt Lake City, in July, 1869.
Their eggs vary both in size and in shape, from a spherical to an oblong-oval, the latter being the more usual. Their length varies from 1.10 to 1.15 inches, and their breadth from .80 to .90 of an inch.
Melanerpes formicivorus, var. formicivorus, Bonap.
CALIFORNIA WOODPECKER.
Picus formicivorus, Swainson, Birds Mex. in Philos. Mag. I, 1827, 439 (Mexico).—Vigors, Zoöl. Blossom, 1839, 23 (Monterey).—Nuttall, Man. I, 2d ed. 1840. Melanerpes formicivorus, Bp. Conspectus, 1850, 115.—Heermann, J. A. N. Sc. Phil. 2d series, II, 1853, 270.—Cassin, Illust. II, 1853, 11, pl. ii.—Newberry, Zoöl. Cal. & Oregon Route, 90, P. R. R. Surv. VI, 1857.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1868, 114.—Sumichrast, Mem. Bost. Soc. I, 1865, 562 (correcting an error of Saussure).—Cassin, Pr. A. N. S. 63, 328.—Heermann, P. R. R. X, 58 (nesting).—Baird, Rep. M. Bound. II, Birds, 6.—Sclater, Pr. Z. S. 1858, 305 (Oaxaca).—Ib. Ibis, 137 (Honduras).—Cab. Jour. 1862, 322 (Costa Rica).—Coues, Pr. A. N. S. 1866, 55.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. I, 1870, 403. Picus melanopogon, Temminck, Pl. Color. IV, (1829? pl. ccccli.—Wagler, Isis, 1829, v, 515.—Sundevall, Consp. 51.
Melanerpes formicivorus.
Sp. Char. Fourth quill longest, third a little shorter. Above and on the anterior half of the body, glossy bluish or greenish black; the top of the head and a short occipital crest red. A white patch on the forehead, connecting with a broad crescentic collar on the upper part of the neck by a narrow isthmus, white tinged with sulphur-yellow. Belly, rump, bases of primaries, and inner edges of the outer quills, white. Tail-feathers uniform black. Female with the red confined to the occipital crest, the rest replaced by greenish-black; the three patches white, black, and red, very sharply defined, and about equal. Length about 9.50; wing, 6.00; tail, 3.75.
Hab. Pacific Coast region of the United States and south; in Northern Mexico, eastward almost to the Gulf of Mexico; also on the Upper Rio Grande; south to Costa Rica. Localities: Oaxaca (Scl. P. Z. S. 1858, 305); Cordova (Scl. 1856, 307); Guatemala (Scl. Ibis, I, 137); Honduras (Scl. Cat. 341); Costa Rica (Cab. J. 1862, 322); W. Arizona (Coues, P. A. N. S. 1866, 55).
In most specimens one or two red feathers may be detected in the black of the breast just behind the sulphur-yellow crescent. The white of the breast is streaked with black; the posterior portion of the black of the breast and anterior belly streaked with white. The white of the wing only shows externally as a patch at the base of the primaries.
PLATE LIII.
1. Melanerpes formicivorus. ♂ Cal., 5495.
2. Melanerpes formicivorus. ♀ Cal., 25035.
3. Melanerpes angustifrons. ♂ Cape St. Lucas, 25947.
4. Melanerpes angustifrons. ♀ Cape St. Lucas, 25949.
Dr. Coues calls attention to extraordinary differences in the color of the iris, which varies from white to red, blue, yellow, ochraceous, or brown. A mixture of blue, he thinks, indicates immaturity, and a reddish tinge the full spring coloration.
The male of this species has a white forehead extending a little backwards of the anterior edge of the eye, the rest of the top of head to the nape being red. The female has the white forehead, and a quadrate occipito-nuchal red patch, a black band about as broad as the white one separating the latter from the occipital red. The length of the two anterior bands together is decidedly greater than that of the posterior red. In both sexes the jugulum is entirely and continuously black. Anteriorly (generally with a red spot in its anterior edge) and on the feathers of its posterior border only are these elongated white spots, on each side the shaft, the feathers of the breast being streaked centrally with black. The inner webs of the secondaries have an elongated continuous patch of white along their internal edge, with a very slight, almost inappreciable, border of black; this white only very rarely converted partly or entirely into quadrate spots, and that never on the innermost quills marked with white. Specimens from California are very similar to those from the Rocky Mountains and the Rio Grande Valley, except, perhaps, in being larger, with longer and straighter bill.
In M. flavigula from Bogota, the male has the head marked with the red, black, and white (the red much less in extent, however) of the female M. formicivorus, while the female has no red whatever. All, or nearly all, the feathers of the jugulum have the two white spots, and (as pointed out by Reichenbach) the white of the inner webs of the inner quills is entirely converted into a series of non-confluent quadrate spots. The black streaks on the sides and behind appear to be of greater magnitude, and more uniformly distributed. In both species all the tail-feathers are perfectly black.
A Guatemalan bird, received from Mr. Salvin as M. formicivorus,—and indeed all specimens from Orizaba and Mirador to Costa Rica,—agrees in the main with the northern bird, except that all the black feathers of the jugulum have white spots, as in M. flavigula. The outermost tail-feather of Mr. Salvin’s specimen has two narrow transverse whitish bands, and a spot indicating a third, as well as a light tip. The white markings on the inner quills are more like the northern bird, though on the outermost ones there is the same tendency to form spots as in a few northern specimens (as 6,149 from Los Nogales, &c.). The bill is very different from either in being shorter, broader, much stouter, and the culmen more decurved.
These peculiarities, which are constant, appear to indicate a decided or strongly marked variety, as a series of almost a hundred specimens of the northern bird from many localities exhibit none of the characters mentioned, while all of an equally large series from Central America agree in possessing them.
A series of Jalapan specimens from the cabinet of Mr. Lawrence show a
close relationship to skins from the Rio Grande, and do not approach the Guatemalan bird in the peculiar characters just referred to, except in the shortness and curvature of the bill. In one specimen there is an approach to the Bogotan in a moderate degree of barring on the white inner edgings of the tertials; in the rest, however, they are continuously white.
Habits. This handsome Woodpecker, distinguished both by the remarkable beauty of its plumage and the peculiarity of its provident habits, has a widely extended area of distribution, covering the Pacific Coast, from Oregon throughout Mexico. In Central America it is replaced by the variety striatipectus, and in New Grenada by the var. flavigula, while at Cape St. Lucas we find another local form, M. angustifrons. So far as we have the means of ascertaining their habits, we find no mention of any essential differences in this respect among these races.
Suckley and Cooper did not meet with this bird in Washington Territory, and Mr. Lord met with it in abundance on his journey from Yreka to the boundary line of British Columbia. Mr. Dresser did not observe it at San Antonio. Mr. Clark met with it at the Coppermines, in New Mexico, in great numbers, and feeding principally among the oaks. Lieutenant Couch found it in the recesses of the Sierra Madre quite common and very tame, resorting to high trees in search of its food. He did not meet with it east of the Sierra Madre. Dr. Kennerly first observed it in the vicinity of Santa Cruz, where it was very frequent on the mountain-slopes, always preferring the tallest trees, but very shy, and it was with difficulty that a specimen could be procured. Mr. Nuttall, who first added this bird to our fauna, speaks of it as very plentiful in the forests around Santa Barbara. Between that region and the Pueblo de los Angeles, Dr. Gambel met with it in great abundance, although neither writer makes mention of any peculiarities of habit. Mr. Emanuel Samuels met with it in and around Petaluma, where he obtained the eggs.
Dr. Newberry, in his Report on the zoölogy of Lieutenant Williamson’s route (P. R. R. Reports, VI), states that the range of this species extends to the Columbia, and perhaps above, to the westward of the Cascade Range, though more common in California than in Oregon. It was not found in the Des Chutes Basin, nor in the Cascade Mountains.
In the list of the birds of Guatemala given by Mr. Salvin in the Ibis, this Woodpecker is mentioned (I, p. 137) as being found in the Central Region, at Calderas, on the Volcan de Fuego, in forests of evergreen oaks, where it feeds on acorns.
Dr. Heermann describes it as among the noisiest as well as the most abundant of the Woodpeckers of California. He speaks of it as catching insects on the wing, after the manner of a Flycatcher, and mentions its very extraordinary habit of digging small holes in the bark of the pine and the oak, in which it stores acorns for its food in winter. He adds that one of these acorns is placed in each hole, and is so tightly fitted or driven in that it is
with difficulty extracted. Thus, the bark of a large pine forty or fifty feet high will present the appearance of being closely studded with brass nails, the heads only being visible. These acorns are thus stored in large quantities, and serve not only the Woodpecker, but trespassers as well. Dr. Heermann speaks of the nest as being excavated in the body of the tree to a depth varying from six inches to two feet, the eggs being four or five in number, and pure white.
These very remarkable and, for a Woodpecker, somewhat anomalous habits, first mentioned among American writers by Dr. Heermann, have given rise to various conflicting statements and theories in regard to the design of these collections of acorns. Some have even ventured to discredit the facts, but these are too well authenticated to be questioned. Too many naturalists whose accuracy cannot be doubted have been eyewitnesses to these performances. Among these is Mr. J. K. Lord, who, however, was constrained to confess his utter inability to explain why the birds did so. He was never able to find an acorn that seemed to have been eaten, nor a trace of vegetable matter in their stomachs, and at the close of his investigations he frankly admitted this storing of acorns to be a mystery for which he could offer no satisfactory explanation.
M. H. de Saussure, the Swiss naturalist, in an interesting paper published in 1858 in the Bibliothèque Universelle of Geneva, furnishes some very interesting observations on the habits of a Woodpecker, which he supposed to be the Colaptes mexicanoides of Mexico, of storing collections of acorns in the hollow stems of the maguay plants. Sumichrast, who accompanied Saussure in his excursion, while recognizing the entire truth of the interesting facts he narrates, is confident that the credit of all this instinctive forethought belongs not to the Colaptes, but to the Mexican race of this species. Saussure’s article being too long to quote in full, we give an abstract.
The slopes of a volcanic mountain, Pizarro, near Perote, in Mexico, are covered with immense beds of the maguay (Agave americana), with larger growths of yuccas, but without any other large shrubs or trees. Saussure was surprised to find this silent and dismal wilderness swarming with Woodpeckers. A circumstance so unusual as this large congregation of birds, by nature so solitary, in a spot so unattractive, prompted him to investigate the mystery. The birds were seen to fly first to the stalks of the maguay, to attack them with their beaks, and then to pass to the yuccas, and there repeat their labors. These stalks, upon examination, were all found to be riddled with holes, placed irregularly one above another, and communicating with the hollow cavity within. On cutting open one of these stalks, he found it filled with acorns.
As is well known, this plant, after flowering, dies, its stalk remains, its outer covering hardens into a flinty texture, and its centre becomes hollow. This convenient cavity is used by the Woodpecker as a storehouse for provisions that are unusual food for the tribe. The central cavity of the stalk is only
large enough to receive one acorn at a time. They are packed in, one above the other, until the cavity is full. How did these Woodpeckers first learn to thus use these storehouses, by nature closed against them? The intelligent instinct that enabled this bird to solve this problem Saussure regarded as not the least surprising feature. With its beak it pierces a small round hole through the lower portion into the central cavity, and thrusts in acorns until the hollow is filled to the level of the hole. It then makes a second opening higher up, and fills the space below in a like manner, and so proceeds until the entire stalk is full. Sometimes the space is too small to receive the acorns, and they have to be forced in by blows from its beak. In other stalks there are no cavities, and then the Woodpecker creates one for each acorn, forcing it into the centre of the pith.
The labor necessary to enable the bird to accomplish all this is very considerable, and great industry is required to collect its stores; but, once collected, the storehouse is a very safe and convenient one. Mount Pizarro is in the midst of a barren desert of sand and volcanic débris. There are no oak-trees nearer than the Cordilleras, thirty miles distant, and therefore the collecting and storing of each acorn required a flight of sixty miles.
This, reasons Saussure, is obviously an instinctive preparation, on the part of these birds, to provide the means of supporting life during the arid winter months, when no rain falls and everything is parched. His observations were made in April, the last of the winter months; and he found the Woodpeckers withdrawing food from their depositories, and satisfied himself that the birds were eating the acorn itself, and not the diminutive maggots a few of them contained.
The ingenuity with which the bird managed to get at the contents of each acorn was also quite striking. Its feet being unfit for grasping the acorn, it digs a hole into the dry bark of the yuccas, just large enough to receive the small end of the acorn, which it inserts, making use of its bill to split it open, as with a wedge. The trunks of the yuccas were all found riddled with these holes.
There are several remarkable features to be noticed in the facts observed by Saussure,—the provident instinct which prompts this bird to lay by stores of provisions for the winter; the great distance traversed to collect a kind of food so unusual for its race; and its seeking, in a spot so remote from its natural abode, a storehouse so remarkable. Can instinct alone teach, or have experience and reason taught, these birds, that, better far than the bark of trees, or cracks in rocks, or cavities dug in the earth, or any other known hiding-place, are these hidden cavities within the hollow stems of distant plants? What first taught them how to break through the flinty coverings of these retreats? By what revelation could these birds have been informed that within these dry and closed stalks they could, by searching, find suitable places, protected from moisture, for preserving their stores in a state most favorable for their long preservation, safe from gnawing
rats, and from those acorn-eating birds whose bills are not strong or sharp enough to cut through their tough enclosures? M. Sumichrast, who afterwards enjoyed unusual opportunities for observing the habits of these Woodpeckers in the State of Vera Cruz, states that they dwell exclusively in oak woods, and that near Potrero, as well as in the alpine regions, trunks of oak-trees are found pierced with small holes in circular lines around their circumference. Into each of these holes these birds drive the acorns by repeated blows of their beaks, so as to fix them firmly. At other times they make their collection of acorns in openings between the raised bark of dry trees and the trunks. This writer states that he has sought in vain to explain such performances satisfactorily. The localities in which these birds reside, in Mexico, teem at all seasons with insects; and it seems absurd, therefore, to suppose that they can be in quest of the small, almost microscopic, larvæ contained in the acorns.
Dr. C. T. Jackson sought to account for these interesting performances on the ingenious hypothesis that the acorns thus stored are always infested with larvæ, and never sound ones; that they are driven into the tree cup-end foremost, so as to securely imprison the maggot and prevent its escape, and thus enable the Woodpecker to devour it at its leisure. This would argue a wonderful degree of intelligence and forethought, on the part of the Woodpecker, and more than it is entitled to; for the facts do not sustain this hypothesis. The acorns are not put into the tree with the cup-end in, but invariably the reverse, so far as we have noticed; and the acorns, so far from being wormy, are, in nine cases out of ten, sound ones. Besides, this theory affords no explanation of the large collections of loose acorns made by these birds in hollow trees, or in the stalks of the maguay plants. Nor can we understand why, if so intelligent, they make so little use of these acorns, as seems to be the almost universal testimony of California naturalists. And, as still further demonstrating the incorrectness of this hypothesis, we have recently been informed by Dr. Canfield of Monterey, Cal., that occasionally these Woodpeckers, following an instinct so blind that they do not distinguish between an acorn and a pebble, are known to fill up the holes they have drilled with so much labor, not only with acorns, but occasionally with stones. In time the bark and the wood grow over these, and after a few years they are left a long way from the surface. These trees are usually the sugar-pine of California, a wood much used for lumber. Occasionally one of these trees is cut, the log taken to mill without its being known that it is thus charged with rounded pieces of flint or agate, and the saws that come in contact with them are broken.
Without venturing to present an explanation of facts that have appeared so contradictory and unsatisfactory to other naturalists, such as we can claim to be either comprehensive or entirely satisfactory, we cannot discredit the positive averments of such observers as Saussure and Salvin. We believe that these Woodpeckers do eat the acorns, when they can do no better.
And when we are confronted with the fact, which we do not feel at liberty to altogether disregard, that in very large regions this bird seems to labor in vain, and makes no use of the treasures it has thus heaped together, we can only attempt an explanation. This Woodpecker is found over an immense area. It everywhere has the same instinctive promptings to provide, not “for a rainy day,” but for the exact opposite,—for a long interval during which no rain falls, for nearly two hundred days at a time, in all the low and hot lands of Mexico and Central America. There these accumulations become a necessity, there we are informed they do eat the acorns, and, more than this, many other birds and beasts derive the means of self-preservation in times of famine from the provident labors of this bird. That in Oregon, in California, and in the mountains of Mexico and elsewhere, where better and more natural food offers throughout the year, it is rarely known to eat the acorns it has thus labored to save, only seems to prove that it acts under the influences of an undiscriminating instinct that prompts it to gather in its stores whether it needs them or not.
It may be, too, that writers have too hastily inferred that these birds never eat the acorns, because they have been unable to obtain complete evidence of the fact. We have recently received from C. W. Plass, Esq., some interesting facts, which, if they do not prove that these birds in the winter visit their stores and eat their acorns, render it highly probable. Mr. Plass resides near Napa City, Cal., near which city, and on the edge of the pine forests, he has recently constructed a house. The gable-ends of this dwelling the California Woodpeckers have found a very convenient storehouse for their acorns, and Mr. Plass has very considerately permitted them to do so unmolested. The window in the gable slides up upon pullies its whole length, to admit of a passage to the upper verandah, and the open space in the wall admits of the nuts falling down into the upper hall, and this frequently happens when the birds attempt to extricate them from the outside. Nearly all these nuts are found to be sound, and contain no worm, while those that fall outside are empty shells. Empty shells have also been noticed by Mr. Plass under the trees, indicating that the acorns have been eaten.
The Smithsonian Institution has received specimens of the American race of this Woodpecker, collected at Belize by Dr. Berendt, and accompanied by illustrations of their work in the way of implantation of acorns in the bark of trees.
The eggs of this Woodpecker, obtained by Mr. Emanuel Samuels near Petaluma, Cal., and now in the collection of the Boston Society of Natural History, are undistinguishable from the eggs of other Woodpeckers in form or color, except that they are somewhat oblong, and measure 1.12 inches in length by .90 of an inch in breadth.
Melanerpes formicivorus, var. angustifrons, Baird.
THE NARROW-FRONTED WOODPECKER.
Melanerpes formicivorus, var. angustifrons, Baird, Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 405.
Sp. Char. Compared with M. formicivorus, the size is smaller. The light frontal bar is much narrower; in the female scarcely more than half the black one behind it, and not reaching anything like as far back as the anterior border of the eye, instead of exceeding this limit. The light frontal and the black bars together are only about two thirds the length of the occipital red, instead of exceeding it in length; the red patch reaches forward nearly or quite to the posterior border of the eye, instead of falling a considerable distance behind it, and being much broader posteriorly. The frontal band too is gamboge-yellow, much like the throat, and not white; the connection with the yellow throat-patch much broader. The white upper tail-coverts show a tendency to a black edge. Length, 8.00; wing, 5.20; tail, 3.20.
Hab. Cape St. Lucas.
As the differences mentioned are constant, we consider the Cape St. Lucas bird as forming at least a permanent variety, and indicate it as above. A single specimen from the Sierra Madre, of Colima, is very similar.
Habits. We have no information as to the habits of this singular race of the M. formicivorus, found at Cape St. Lucas by Mr. John Xantus. It will be an interesting matter for investigation to ascertain to what extent the totally different character of the region in which this bird is met with from those in which the M. formicivorus is found, may have modified its habits and its manner of life.
Section COLAPTEÆ.
This section, formerly embracing but one genus additional to Colaptes, has recently had three more added to it by Bonaparte. The only United States representative, however, is Colaptes.
Genus COLAPTES, Swainson.
Colaptes, Swainson, Zoöl. Jour. III, Dec. 1827, 353. (Type, Cuculus auratus, Linn.)
Geopicos, Malherbe, Mém. Acad. Metz, 1849, 358. (G. campestris.)
Gen. Char. Bill slender, depressed at the base, then compressed. Culmen much curved, gonys straight; both with acute ridges, and coming to quite a sharp point with the commissure at the end; the bill, consequently, not truncate at the end. No ridges on the bill. Nostrils basal, median, oval, and exposed. Gonys very short; about half the culmen. Feet large; the anterior outer toe considerably longer than the posterior. Tail long, exceeding the secondaries; the feathers suddenly acuminate, with elongated points.
Colaptes auratus.
1341 ♂
There are four well-marked representatives of the typical genus Colaptes belonging to Middle and North America, three of them found within the limits of the United States, in addition to what has been called a hybrid between two of them. The common and distinctive characters of these four are as follows:—
Species and Varieties.
Common Characters. Head and neck ashy or brown, unvaried except by a black or red malar patch in the male. Back and wings brown, banded transversely with black; rump and upper tail-coverts white. Beneath whitish, with circular black spots, and bands on crissum; a black pectoral crescent. Shafts and under surfaces of quills and tail-feathers either yellow or red.
A. Mustache red; throat ash; no red nuchal crescent.
a. Under surface and shafts of wings and tail red.
1. C. mexicanoides.[133] Hood bright cinnamon-rufous; feathers of mustache black below surface. Upper parts barred with black and whitish-brown, the two colors of about equal width. Shafts, etc., dull brick-red. Rump spotted with black; black terminal zone of under surface of tail narrow, badly defined. Wing, 6.15; tail, 4.90; bill, 1.77. Hab. Southern Mexico and Guatemala.
2. C. mexicanus.[134] Hood ashy-olivaceous, more rufescent anteriorly, light cinnamon on lores and around eyes; feathers of mustache light ash below surface. Upper parts umber-brown, barred with black, the black only about one fourth as wide as the brown. Shafts, etc., fine salmon-red, or pinkish orange-red. Rump unspotted; black terminal
zone of tail broad, sharply defined. Wing, 6.70; tail, 5.00; bill, 1.60. Hab. Middle and Western Province of United States, south into Eastern Mexico to Mirador and Orizaba, and Jalapa.
b. Under surface and shafts of wings and tail gamboge-yellow.
3. C. chrysoides. Hood uniform light cinnamon; upper parts raw umber with sparse, very narrow and distant, bars of black. Rump immaculate; black terminal zone of tail occupying nearly the terminal half, and very sharply defined. Wing, 5.90; tail, 5.70; bill, 1.80. Hab. Colorado and Cape St. Lucas region of Southern Middle Province of United States.
B. Mustache black; a red nuchal crescent. Throat pinkish, hood ashy.
4. C. auratus. Shafts, etc., gamboge-yellow; upper parts olivaceous-brown, with narrow bars of black, about half as wide as the brown.
Rump immaculate; black terminal zone of under surface of tail broad, more than half an inch wide on outer feather. Edges of tail-feathers narrowly edged, but not indented, with whitish. Outer web of lateral feathers without spots of dusky. Wing, 6.10; tail, 4.80; bill, 1.58. Hab. Eastern Province of North America … var. auratus.
Rump spotted with black; black terminal zone of tail narrow, consisting on outer feather of an irregular spot less than a quarter of an inch wide. Edges of all the tail-feathers indented with whitish bars; outer web of lateral feathers with quadrate spots of dusky along the edge. Wing, 5.75; tail, 4.75; bill, 1.60. Hab. Cuba … var. chrysocaulosus.[135]
PLATE LIV.
1. Colaptes chrysoides. ♂ Arizona, 107.
2. Colaptes chrysoides. ♀ Cape St. Lucas.
3. Colaptes hybridus. ♂ Neb., 5214.
4. Melanerpes erythrocephalus. ♂ Neb., 38303.
5. Melanerpes torquatus. ♂ Cal., 6138.
Colaptes auratus, Swainson.
FLICKER; YELLOW-SHAFTED WOODPECKER; HIGH-HOLDER.
Cuculus auratus, Linn. Syst. Nat., I, (ed. 10,) 1758, 112. Picus auratus, Linn. Syst. Nat. 1, (ed. 12,) 1766, 174.—Forster, Phil. Trans. LXII, 1772, 383.—Vieillot, Ois. Am. Sept. II, 1807, 66, pl. cxxiii.—Wilson, Am. Orn. I, 1810, 45, pl. iii, f. 1.—Wagler, Syst. Av. 1827, No. 84.—Aud. Orn. Biog. I, 1832, 191; V, 540, pl. xxxvii.—Ib. Birds Amer. IV, 1842, 282, pl. cclxxiii.—Sundevall, Consp. 71. Colaptes auratus, Sw. Zoöl. Jour. III, 1827, 353.—Ib. F. Bor. Am. II, 1831, 314.—Bon. List, 1838.—Ib. Conspectus, 1850, 113.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 118.—Max. Cab. Jour. 1858, 420.—Dresser, Ibis, 1865, 470 (San Antonio, one specimen only seen).—Scl. Cat. 1862, 344.—Gray, Cat. 1868, 120.—Fowler, Am. Nat. III, 1869, 422.—Dall & Bannister, Tr. Chicago Ac. I, 1869, 275 (Alaska).—Samuels, 105.—Allen, B. E. Fla. 307.
Sp. Char. Shafts and under surfaces of wing and tail feathers gamboge-yellow. Male with a black patch on each side of the cheek. A red crescent on the nape. Throat and stripe beneath the eye pale lilac-brown. Back glossed with olivaceous-green. Female without the black cheek-patch.
Additional Characters. A crescentic patch on the breast and rounded spots on the belly black. Back and wing-coverts with interrupted transverse bands of black. Neck above and on the sides ashy. Beneath pale pinkish-brown, tinged with yellow on the
abdomen, each feather with a heart-shaped spot of black near the end. Rump white. Length, 12.50; wing, 6.00.
Hab. All of eastern North America to the eastern slopes of Rocky Mountains; farther north, extending across along the Yukon as far at least as Nulato, perhaps to the Pacific. Greenland (Reinhardt). Localities: San Antonio, Texas, only one specimen (Dresser, Ibis, 1865, 470).
Specimens vary considerably in size and proportions; the more northern ones are much the larger. The spots vary in number and in size; they may be circular, or transversely or longitudinally oval. Western specimens appear paler. In a Selkirk Settlement specimen the belly is tinged with pale sulphur-yellow, the back with olivaceous-green.
This species, in general pattern of coloration, resembles the C. mexicanus, although the colors are very different. Thus the shafts of the quills, with their under surfaces, are gamboge-yellow, instead of orange-red. There is a conspicuous nuchal crescent of crimson wanting, or but slightly indicated, in mexicanus. The cheek-patch is pure black, widening and abruptly truncate behind, instead of bright crimson, pointed or rounded behind. The shade of the upper parts is olivaceous-green, instead of purplish-brown. The top of the head and the nape are more ashy. The chin, throat, neck, and sides of the head, are pale purplish or lilac brown, instead of bluish-ash; the space above, below, and around the eye of the same color, instead of having reddish-brown above and ashy below.
The young of this species is sufficiently like the adult to be readily recognizable. Sometimes the entire crown is faintly tipped with red, as characteristic of young Woodpeckers.
Habits. The Golden-winged Woodpecker is altogether the most common and the most widely distributed of the North American representatives of the genus. According to Sir John Richardson, it visits the fur countries in the summer, extending its migrations as far to the north as the Great Slave Lake, and resorting in great numbers to the plains of the Saskatchewan. It was found by Dr. Woodhouse very abundant in Texas and the Indian Territory, and it is given by Reinhardt as occurring in Greenland. Mr. McFarlane found it breeding at Fort Anderson; Mr. Ross at Fort Rae, Fort Resolution, and Fort Simpson; and Mr. Kennicott at Fort Yukon. All this testimony demonstrates a distribution throughout the entire eastern portion of North America, from the Gulf of Mexico almost to the Arctic Ocean, and from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains.
In the more northern portions of the continent this bird is only a summer visitant, but in the Southern and Middle, and to some extent in the New England States, it is a permanent resident. Wilson speaks of seeing them exposed for sale in the markets of Philadelphia during each month of a very rigorous winter. Wilson’s observations of their habits during breeding, made in Pennsylvania, were that early in April they begin to prepare their nest. This is built in the hollow body or branch of a tree, sometimes,
though not always, at a considerable height from the ground. He adds that he has frequently known them to fix on the trunk of an old apple-tree, at a height not more than six feet from the root. He also mentions as quite surprising the sagacity of this bird in discovering, under a sound bark, a hollow limb or trunk of a tree, and its perseverance in perforating it for purposes of incubation. The male and female alternately relieve and encourage each other by mutual caresses, renewing their labors for several days, till the object is attained, and the place rendered sufficiently capacious, convenient, and secure. They are often so extremely intent upon their work as to be heard at their labor till a very late hour in the night. Wilson mentions one instance where he knew a pair to dig first five inches straight forward, and then downward more than twice that distance, into a solid black-oak. They carry in no materials for their nest, the soft chips and dust of the wood serving for this purpose. The female lays six white eggs, almost transparent, very thick at the greater end, and tapering suddenly to the other. The young soon leave the nest, climbing to the higher branches, where they are fed by their parents.
According to Mr. Audubon this Woodpecker rears two broods in a season, the usual number of eggs being six. In one instance, however, Mr. MacCulloch, quoted by Audubon, speaks of having found a nest in a rotten stump, which contained no less than eighteen young birds, of various ages, and at least two eggs not quite hatched. It is not improbable that, in cases where the number of eggs exceeds seven or eight, more females than one have contributed to the number. In one instance, upon sawing off the decayed top of an old tree, in which these birds had a nest, twelve eggs were found. These were not molested, but, on visiting the place a few days after, I found the excavation to have been deepened from eighteen to twenty-four inches.
Mr. C. S. Paine, of Randolph, Vt., writing in October, 1860, furnishes some interesting observations made in regard to these birds in the central part of that State. He says, “This Woodpecker is very common, and makes its appearance about the 20th of April. Between the 1st and the 15th of May it usually commences boring a hole for the nest, and deposits its eggs the last of May or the first of June.” He found three nests that year, all of which were in old stumps on the banks of a small stream. Each nest contained seven eggs. The boy who took them out was able to do so without any cutting, and found them at the depth of his elbow. In another nest there were but three eggs when first discovered. The limb was cut down nearly to a level with the eggs, which were taken. The next day the nest had been deepened a whole foot and another egg deposited. Mr. Paine has never known them go into thick woods to breed, but they seem rather to prefer the edges of woods. He has never known one to breed in an old cavity, but in one instance a pair selected a partially decayed stump for their operations. When they are disturbed, they sometimes fly around their nests, uttering shrill, squeaking notes, occasionally intermixing with them guttural or gurgling tones.
It is probably true that they usually excavate their own burrow, but this is not an invariable rule. In the fall of 1870 a pair of these Woodpeckers took shelter in my barn, remaining there during the winter. Although there were abundant means of entrance and of egress, they wrought for themselves other passages out and in through the most solid part of the sides of the building. Early in the spring they took possession of a large cavity in an old apple-tree, directly on the path between the barn and the house, where they reared their family. They were very shy, and rarely permitted themselves to be seen. The nest contained six young, each of which had been hatched at successive intervals, leaving the nest one after the other. The youngest was nearly a fortnight later to depart than the first. Just before leaving the nest, the oldest bird climbed to the opening of the cavity, filling the whole space, and uttering a loud hissing sound whenever the nest was approached. As soon as they could use their wings, even partially, they were removed, one by one, to a more retired part of the grounds, where they were fed by their parents.
Throughout Massachusetts, this bird, generally known as the Pigeon Woodpecker, is one of the most common and familiar birds. They abound in old orchards and groves, and manifest more apparent confidence in man than the treatment they receive at his hands seems to justify. Their nests are usually constructed at the distance of only a few feet from the ground, and though Wilson, Audubon, and Nuttall agree upon six as the average of their eggs, they frequently exceed this number. Mr. Audubon gives as the measurement of the eggs of this species 1.08 inches in length and .88 of an inch in breadth. Their length varies from 1.05 to 1.15 inches, and their breadth from .91 to .85 of an inch. Their average measurement is 1.09 by .88 of an inch.
Colaptes mexicanus, Swainson.
RED-SHAFTED FLICKER.
Colaptes mexicanus, Sw. Syn. Mex. Birds, in Philos. Mag. I, 1827, 440.—Ib. F. Bor. Am. II, 1831, 315.—Newberry, Zoöl. Cal. & Or. Route, 91; P. R. R. Rep. VI, 1857.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 120.—Max. Cab. Jour. 1858, 420, mixed with hybridus.—Lord, Proc. R. Art. Inst. I, IV, 112.—Cooper & Suckley, 163.—Sclater, P. Z. S. 1858, 309 (Oaxaca).—Ib. Cat. 1862, 344.—Dresser, Ibis, 1865, 470 (San Antonio, rare).—Coues, Pr. A. N. S. 1866, 56.—Sumichrast, Mem. Bost. Soc. I, 1869, 562 (alpine district, Vera Cruz).—Gray, Cat. 1868, 121.—Dall & Bannister, Pr. Chicago Ac. I, 1869, 275 (Alaska).—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 408. Picus mexicanus, Aud. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 174, pl. ccccxvi.—Ib. Birds America, IV, 1842, 295, pl. cclxxiv.—Sundevall, Consp. 72. Colaptes collaris, Vigors, Zoöl. Jour. IV, Jan. 1829, 353.—Ib. Zoöl. Beechey’s Voy. 1839, 24, pl. ix. Picus rubricatus, Wagler, Isis, 1829, V, May, 516. (“Lichtenstein Mus. Berol.”) Colaptes rubricatus, Bon. Pr. Zoöl. Soc. V, 1837, 108.—Ib. List, 1838.—Ib. Conspectus, 1850, 114. ? Picus cafer, Gmelin, Syst. Nat. I, 1788, 431.—Lath. Index Ornith. II, 1790, 242. ? Picus lathami, Wagler, Syst. 1827, No. 85 (Cape of Good Hope?).
Sp. Char. Shafts and under surfaces of wing and tail feathers orange-red. Male with a red patch on each side the cheek; nape without red crescent; sometimes very faint indications laterally. Throat and stripe beneath the eye bluish-ash. Back glossed with purplish-brown. Female without the red cheek-patch. Length, about 13.00; wing, over 6.50.
Colaptes mexicanus.
Additional Characters. Spots on the belly, a crescent on the breast, and interrupted transverse bands on the back, black.
Hab. Western North America from Pacific to the Black Hills; north to Sitka on the coast. Localities: Oaxaca (Scl. P. Z. S. 1858, 305); Vera Cruz, alpine regions (Sumichrast, Mem. Bost. Soc. I, 1869. 562); San Antonio, Texas (Dresser, Ibis, 1865. 470); W. Arizona (Coues, P. A. N. S. 1866, 56).
The female is similar in every way, perhaps a little smaller, but lacks the red mustache. This is, however, indicated by a brown tinge over an area corresponding with that of the red of the male.
In the present specimen (1,886) there is a slight indication of an interrupted nuchal red band, as in the common Flicker, in some crimson fibres to some of the feathers about as far behind the eye as this is from the bill. A large proportion of males before us exhibit the same characteristic, some more, some less, although it generally requires careful examination for its detection. It may possibly be a characteristic of the not fully mature bird, although it occurs in two out of three male specimens.
There is a little variation in the size of the pectoral crescent and spots; the latter are sometimes rounded or oblong cordate, instead of circular. The bill varies as much as three or four tenths of an inch. The rump, usually immaculate, sometimes has a few black streaks. The extent of the red whisker varies a little. In skins from Oregon and Washington the color of the back is as described; in those from California and New Mexico it is of a grayer cast. There is little, if any, variation in the shade of red in the whiskers and quill-feathers. The head is washed on the forehead with rufous, passing into ashy on the nape.
There is not only some difference in the size of this species, in the same locality, but, as a general rule, the more southern specimens are smaller.
This species is distinct from the C. mexicanoides of Lafresnaye, though somewhat resembling it. It is, however, a smaller bird; the red of the cheeks is deeper; the whole upper part of the head and neck uniform reddish-cinnamon without any ash, in marked contrast to that on the sides of the
head. The back is strongly glossed with reddish-brown, and the black transverse bars are much more distinct, closer and broader, three or four on each feather, instead of two only. The rump and upper tail-coverts are closely barred, the centre of the former only clearer white, but even here each feather has a cordate spot of white. The spots on the flanks posteriorly exhibit a tendency to become transverse bars.
Specimens from Mount Orizaba, Mexico, are very similar to those from Oregon in color, presenting no appreciable difference. The size is, however, much less, a male measuring 10.50, wing 6.00, tail 4.60 inches, instead of 12.75, 6.75, and 5.25 respectively. While, however, the feet are smaller (tarsus 1.00 instead of 1.15), the bill is fully as large, or even larger.
Most young birds of this species have a tinge of red on top of the head, and frequently a decided nuchal crescent of red; but these are only embryonic features, and disappear with maturity.
Habits. This species, the counterpart in so many respects of the Golden-winged Woodpecker, appears to take the place of that species from the slopes of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, throughout western North America. Dr. Woodhouse speaks of finding it abundant along the banks of the Rio Grande. And in the fine collection belonging to the Smithsonian Institution are specimens from the Straits of Fuca, Fort Steilacoom, and Fort Vancouver, in Washington Territory, from the Columbia River, from various points in California, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, Mexico, etc. Dr. Gambel, in his Paper on the birds of California, first met with the Red-shafted Woodpecker soon after leaving New Mexico, and it continued to California, where he found it very abundant. He describes it as a remarkably shy bird, and adds that he always saw it on the margins of small creeks, where nothing grew larger than a willow-bush. Dr. Heermann also found it abundant in California. Dr. Newberry, in his Report on the zoölogy of Lieutenant Williamson’s expedition, speaks of the Red-shafted Flicker as rather a common bird in all parts of California and Oregon which his party visited. He describes many of its habits as identical with those of the Golden Flicker (C. auratus), but regards it as much the shyer bird. Dr. Cooper also mentions the fact of the great abundance of this bird along the western coast, equalling that of its closely allied cousin on the eastern side of the Mississippi. It also resembles, he adds, that bird so exactly in habits and notes that the description of one will apply with exactness to the other. It is a constant resident in Washington Territory, or at least west of the Cascade Mountains. He observed it already burrowing out holes for its nests in April, at the Straits of Fuca. About June 1 he found a nest containing seven young, nearly fledged, which already showed in the male the distinguishing red mustache. Dr. Suckley, in the same report, also says that it is extremely common in the timbered districts of Washington Territory, and adds that its habits, voice, calls, etc., are precisely similar to those of the Yellow-Hammer of the Eastern States. Mr. Nuttall, as
quoted by Mr. Audubon, states that he first came upon this bird in the narrow belt of forest which borders Laramie’s Fork of the Platte, and adds that he scarcely lost sight of it from that time until he reached the shores of the Pacific. Its manners, in all respects, are so entirely similar to those of the common species that the same description applies to both. He also regards it as the shyer bird of the two, and less frequently seen on the ground. They burrow in the oak and pine trees, and lay white eggs, after the manner of the whole family, and these eggs are in no wise distinguishable from those of the Golden-wing.
Dr. Cooper, in his Report upon the birds of California, refers to this as a common species, and found in every part of the State except the bare plains. It even frequents the low bushes, where no trees are to be seen for miles. In the middle wooded districts, and towards the north, it is much more abundant than elsewhere.
Their nesting-holes are at all heights from the ground, and are usually about one foot in depth. In the southern part of the State their eggs are laid in April, but farther north, at the Columbia, in May.
Dr. Cooper attributes their shyness in certain localities to their being hunted so much by the Indians for their bright feathers. Generally he found them quite tame, so that their interesting habits may be watched without difficulty. He regards them as an exact counterpart of the eastern auratus, living largely on insects and ants, which they collect without much trouble, and do not depend upon hard work, like other Woodpeckers, for their food. During the season they also feed largely on berries. Their curved bill is not well adapted for hammering sound wood for insects, and they only dig into decayed trees in search of their food. Like the eastern species, the young of these birds, when their nest is approached, make a curious hissing noise. They may be seen chasing each other round the trunk of trees, as if in sport, uttering, at the same time, loud cries like whittoo, whittoo, whittoo. Dr. Kennerly found these birds from the Big Sandy to the Great Colorado, but they were so shy that he could not obtain a specimen. They were seen on the barren hills among the large cacti, in which they nest. Their extreme shyness was fully explained afterwards by finding how closely they are hunted by the Indians for the sake of their feathers, of which head-dresses are made.
Mr. Dresser states that this bird is found as far east as San Antonio, where, however, it is of uncommon occurrence. In December he noticed several near the Nueces River, and in February and March obtained others near Piedras Negras.
Dr. Coues gives it as abundant and resident in Arizona, where it is found in all situations. Its tongue, he states, is capable of protrusion to an extent far beyond that of any other North American Woodpecker.
This bird, in some parts of California, is known as the Yellow-Hammer, a name given in some parts of New England to the Colaptes auratus. Mr.
C. W. Plass, of Napa City, writes me that this Woodpecker “makes himself too much at home with us to be agreeable. He drills large holes though the weather-boards of the house, and shelters himself at night between them and the inner wall. He does, not nest there, but simply makes of such situations his winter home. We have had to shoot them, for we find it is of no use to shut up one hole, as they will at once make another by its side.”
Mr. J. A. Allen mentions finding this species, in the absence of suitable trees on the Plains, making excavations in sand-banks.
According to Mr. Ridgway, the Red-shafted Flicker does not differ from the Yellow-shafted species of the east in the slightest particular, as regards habits, manners, and notes. It is, however, more shy than the eastern species, probably from the fact that it is pursued by the Indians, who prize its quill and tail-feathers as ornaments with which to adorn their dress.
Their eggs are hardly distinguishable from those of the auratus, but range of a very slightly superior size. They average 1.12 inches in length by .89 of an inch in breadth. Their greatest length is 1.15 inches, their least 1.10, and their breadth ranges from .87 to .90.
Colaptes hybridus, Baird.
HYBRID FLICKER.
Colaptes ayresii, Aud. Birds Am. VII, 1843, 348, pl. ccccxciv. Colaptes hybridus, Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 122. Colaptes mexicanus, Max. Cab. Jour. 1858, 422 (mixed with mexicanus). Picas hybridus aurato-mexicanus, Sundevall, Consp. Pic. 1866, 721.
Sp. Char. Yellow shafts or feathers on wing and tail combined with red, or red spotted cheek-patches. Orange-red shafts combined with a well-defined nuchal red crescent, and pinkish throat. Ash-colored throat combined with black cheek-patch or yellow shafts. Shafts and feathers intermediate between gamboge-yellow and dark orange-red.
Hab. Upper Missouri and Yellowstone; Black Hills.
PLATE LV.
1. Colaptes auratus. ♂ 2122.
2. Colaptes auratus. ♀.
3. Colaptes mexicanus. ♂.
4. Colaptes mexicanus. ♀.
The general distribution of Colaptes mexicanus, as already indicated, is from the Pacific coast of the United States, eastward to the Black Hills and the Upper Missouri and Yellowstone; that of the C. auratus from the Atlantic Coast to about the eastern limits of mexicanus. But little variation is seen in the two species up to the region mentioned; slight differences in shade of color, size, and frequency of spots, etc., being all. Where they come together, however, or overlap, a most remarkable race is seen, in which no two specimens, nay, scarcely the two sides of the same bird, are alike, the characters of the two species becoming mixed up in the most extraordinary manner. Thus, the shafts show every shade from orange-red to pure yellow; yellow shafts combine with red cheek-patch (as in C. ayresii of Audubon); a red nape, with orange-red shafts; cheek-patches red with black feathers intermixed, or vice versa; perhaps the feathers red at base and black
at tip, or black at base and red at tip, etc. As the subject has been presented in sufficient detail in the Birds of North America, as quoted above, it need not be repeated here, except to say that collections received since 1858 only substantiate what has there been stated.
To the race thus noted, the name hybridus was given, not as of a variety, since it is not entitled to this rank, but as of a heterogeneous mixture, caused by the breeding together of two different species, and requiring some appellation. Whether the presumed hybrids are fertile, and breed with each other or with full-blooded parents, has not yet been ascertained; perhaps not, since the area in which they occur is limited, and it is only occasionally that individuals of the kind referred to have been found beyond the bounds mentioned. It is very rarely, however, that pure breeds occur in the district of hybridus, a taint being generally appreciable in all.
The conditions in the present instance appear different from those adverted to under the head of Picus villosus, where the question is not one of hybridism between two strongly marked and distinct species, but of the gradual change, between the Atlantic and the Pacific, from one pattern of coloration to another.
Colaptes chrysoides, Malh.
THE CAPE FLICKER.
Geopicus chrysoides, Malh. Rev. et Mag. Zoöl. IV, 1852, 553.—Ib. Mon. Pic. II, 261, tab. 109. Colaptes chrysoides, Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 125.—Elliot, Ill. Birds N. Am. VI, plate.—Cooper, Pr. Cal. Ac. 1861, 122 (Fort Mohave).—Coues, Pr. A. N. Sc. 1866, 56 (Arizona).—Scl. Cat. 1862, 344.—Elliot, Illust. Am. B. I, pl. xxvi.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 410. Picus chrysoides, Sundevall, Consp. 72.
Sp. Char. Markings generally as in other species. Top of head rufous-brown; chin, throat, and sides of head ash-gray. Shafts of quills and tail-feathers, with their under surfaces in great part, gamboge-yellow; no nuchal red. Malar patch of male red; wanting in the female. Length, 11.50; wing, 5.75; tail, 4.50.
Hab. Colorado and Gila River, north to Fort Mohave, south to Cape St. Lucas. Localities: Fort Mohave (Cooper, Pr. Cal. Ac. 1861, 122); W. Arizona (Coues, P. A. N. S. 1866, 56).
This interesting species is intermediate between auratus and mexicanus in having the yellow shafts and quills of the former; a red malar patch, an ashy throat, and no nuchal crescent, as in the latter. To mexicanoides the relationship is still closer, since both have the rufous-brown head above. A hybrid between this last species and auratus would in some varieties come very near chrysoides, but as it does not belong to the region of chrysoides, and there is no transition from one species to the other in any specimens, as in hybridus, there is no occasion to take this view of the species.
Cape St. Lucas specimens, where the species is exceedingly abundant, are considerably smaller than those from Arizona, and appear to be more strongly
marked with black above and below; otherwise there seems to be no difference of special importance.
As neither C. auratus nor mexicanus has the top of the head rufous-brown, (though slightly indicated anteriorly in the latter), this character has not been noted in the hybrids between the two (hybridus), and its presence in chrysoides will serve to distinguish it from hybridus.
Habits. This comparatively new form of Woodpecker was first described in 1852 by Malherbe, from a California specimen in the Paris Museum, which had been at first supposed to be a female or immature ayresii. What Dr. Cooper thinks may have been this species was met with by Dr. Heermann among the mountains bordering upon the Cosumnes River, in California, where it was rare, and only two specimens were taken. In February, 1861, other specimens of this bird were taken at Fort Mohave by Dr. Cooper. They were feeding on larvæ and insects among the poplar-trees, and were very shy and wary. The bird is supposed to winter in the Colorado Valley, and wherever found has been met with in valleys, and not on mountains. It is an abundant and characteristic member of the Cape St. Lucas fauna.
According to Dr. Cooper these birds were already mated at Fort Mohave after February 20. They had the same habits, flight, and cries as the C. mexicanus. They appeared to be migratory, having come from the south.
Mr. Xantus, in his brief notes on the birds of Cape St. Lucas, makes mention of finding this bird breeding, May 19, in a dead Cereus giganteus. The nest was a large cavity about fifteen feet from the ground, and contained only one egg. The parent bird was also secured. In another instance two eggs were found in a Cereus giganteus, at the distance of forty feet from the ground. The eggs were not noticeably different from those of the common Colaptes mexicanus.