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).