450 



THE NORTHWESTERN FUCKER. 



THOUGHTLESS people often call ihe Flickers of Washington 

 "Yellow-hammers," quite regardless of the fact that the western Flicker 

 is no longer yellow, but orange-red. Such an oversight is unpardonable, but 

 it would require a nice eye to distinguish out of hand this really deeply-tinted 

 bird from its lighter brother, the Red-shafted, across the Cascades. The 

 Cascade Mountains mark the ground of intergradation between inexicanns 



and saturafior, 

 and it would 

 seem probable 

 that specimens 

 taken in winter 

 in eastern 

 Washington and 

 dubbed saturati- 

 or, are really 

 birds which sum- 

 mer on the east- 

 ern slopes of the 

 Cascades, and 

 which approach 

 t h e saturated 

 type of plumage, 

 rather than 

 migrants from 

 across the moun- 

 tains, as has been 

 assumed. These 

 are mere sub- 

 tleties. It is more 



important to note that birds of the nic.vicanus type do not appear to differ 

 in song or in psychology from the familiar Colaptes auratus of the East. I 

 therefore transcribe three paragraphs from "The Birds of Ohio" without 

 apology, only substituting flame (i. e., orange-red) for "cloth of gold." 



It is perhaps as a musician that tiie Flicker is best known. The word 

 musician is used in an accommodated sense, for tlie bird is no professional 

 singer, or instrumental maestro; but so long as tlie great orchestra of Nature 

 is rendering the oratorio of life, there will be place for the drummer, the 

 screamer, and the utterer of strange sounds, as well as for the human obligate. 

 The Flicker is first, like all other Woodpeckers, a drummer. The long rolling 

 tattoo of earlv s])ringtime is elicited from some dry limb or board where the 

 greatest resonance mav be secured, and it is intended both as a musical per- 

 formance and as a call of inquiry. Once, as a student, the writer roomed 



Taken iiciir I'ictoria. 



Photo by the Author 



THE 0.\K TREES OF CEDAR HILL. 



A NESTING HAUNT OF THE NORTHWESTERN FLICKER. 



