CONSPICUOUSLY BLACK AND WHITE 367 



" hitt-hitt " as it chases its mate through the wood. The 

 nest is usually in a dead pine or fir, seldom higher than 

 twelve feet from the ground. The entrance is round, 

 about one and a half inches in diameter, 

 and the interior is from eight to thirteen 

 inches deep. From four to seven white 

 eggs are laid on a thin lining of sawdust 

 made by the excavating. Both 

 male and female brood during the 

 fourteen days required for incuba- 

 tion. The young are fed by re- 

 gurgitation at first, and afterwards 

 upon the large black ants so nu- 

 merous in all the dead pine stumps. 

 They remain in the nest nearly 

 four weeks and, for at least ten 



11, r \ , -J-jj 



P, 



days after leaving it, arc fed and ^"^^ 

 cared for by both parents, returning ^ 

 to the old nursery to sleep at night ,•;. 

 while the adults remain on guard 

 outside. 



Dr. Merrill, U. S. A., has studied 

 the habits of this bird thoroughly, 

 and written of it as follows : " I have 

 rarely heard this Woodpecker ham- 

 mer, and even tapping is ratlier un- 

 common. So far as I have observed, 

 — and during the winter I watclied it carefully, — its 

 j)rincipal supply of food is obtained in the bark, most of the 

 pines having a very rough bark, scaly and deeply fissured. 





%i^L 



399. White-headed 

 wooppkckeu. 



" W/ierr the hark is thick- 

 est and toiighext.''^ 



