nicker WESTERN BIRDS 



performance is repeated." In due time the female shows 

 her preference for one of the several males who may be 

 courting her, and often joins in with the bowing and 

 singing of her accepted lover, aiding him in driving away 

 the other males, if they have not already taken their 

 departure. Instances have been recorded where two, or 

 more, females do the courting, using the same methods 

 as do the males. 



Mrs. Althea R. Sherman, of National, Iowa, has for 

 many years watched the nesting habits of the eastern 

 Flicker, and has faithfully recorded the same in a paper 

 read before the A. 0. U. and afterwards published in the 

 Wilson Bulletin, of Oberlin, Ohio. Miss Sherman fixed 

 up boxes in her barn which the birds used for nesting 

 purposes, and bedrooms, it being their habit to spend 

 the night in holes. Extracts from Miss Sherman's paper 

 are here given. 



The usual number of eggs laid by the southern Flicker 

 is five or six, while the northern lays from six to nine, 

 although sets of ten are not unusual and as many as 

 fourteen have been found. Quite often some of these 

 are infertile. 



The brooding does not begin until the sixth egg has 

 been laid, but from the laying of the first egg one of the 

 birds stays in the nest to guard the treasures. Both 

 birds share in the incubation and they are close sitters, 

 seldom allowing the eggs to be uncovered. The brood- 

 ing bird often remains from one to two hours on the nest 

 and when the other bird comes, it heralds its approach 

 by a soft wick-ah-wick note which the bird inside 

 answers. 



The brooding bird puts in its time sleeping, the female 

 resting her bill among the feathers of her neck, while the 

 male assumes various postures. One, which seems to be 

 a favorite, is to lay the head flat upon the bottom of the 

 nest. 



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