216 NESTS AND EGGS OF 



marked and most attractive birds of the family. It breeds from the 

 northern United States northward. A common bird in most of its 

 United States range. The Woodpeckers of this genus are the only 

 ones to which the term "Sapsucker" can with any propriety be ap- 

 plied. They lack the long extensile tongue which enables the other 

 species to probe the winding galleries of wood-eating larvae, and they 

 are known to feed largely upon the green inner bark of trees. In some 

 localities this species is said to destroy many trees by stripping off 

 bark and girdling them with holes for the sap. 



The following details are from Mr. William Brewster's account of 

 this bird's nesting habits in New England. He states that throughout 

 the White Mountains of new Hampshire, and in most sections of 

 Northern Maine, the Yellow-bellied Woodpeckers outnumber all the 

 other species in the summer season. Their favorite nesting sites are 

 large, dead birches, and a decided preference is manifested for the 

 vicinity of water, though some nests occur in the interior woods. The 

 average height of the excavation from the ground is about forty feet. 

 In nearly every tree examined by Mr. Brewster, which contained a 

 nest, there were several newly-finished cavities, and others made in 

 previous years, but in no case was more than one of the excavations 

 inhabited. Many of the nests were gourd-like in shape, with the sides 

 very smoothly and evenly chiseled ; the average depth was about four- 

 teen inches, by five in diameter at the widest point, while the diameter 

 of the exterior hole varied from 1.25 to 1.60 inches. The labors of ex- 

 cavating the nest and those of incubation are shared alternately by both 

 sexes. Mr. Brewster gives the eggs as numbering from five to seven in a 

 set, and varying considerably in shape, some being oblong, others de- 

 cidedly elliptical. They are pure white in color, and there is much less 

 of that fine polish than in eggs of the other species of Woodpeckers he 

 had examined. The size is given as .85 x .60. * 



402#. Sphyrapicus varius nuchalis BAIRD. [3690.] 



Red-naped Sapsucker. 



Hab. Rocky Mountain region, west to the Sierra Nevada and Cascade ranges; south into Mexico. 



Capt. Charles E. Bendire, U. S. A., met with this race of 6". varius 

 sparingly distributed in various portions of the Blue Mountains of 

 Oregon, Washington TerriUny and Idaho, and as far west as the east- 

 ern slope of the Cascade Range in Southern Oregon, in the Klamath 

 Lake region, where it was replaced by Sphyrapicus ruber, the two 

 species overlapping each other, but not intergrading, and remaining 

 perfectly distinct. He found it breeding in June, nesting in cavities of 



*Bull. Nutt. Club. I, pp. 63-70. 



