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.
