BIRDS OF KANSAS. 335 



These familiar birds are at home in the woods, the groves, 

 and wliere there are solitary ti'ees or telegraph poles upon the 

 prairies and treeless plains. They are very social and playful 

 in tlieir habits, and are often to be seen, at all seasons of the 

 year, chasing each other in the air, and playing hide-and-seek 

 around the bodies of trees and among the branches. They 

 are also quite successful as flycatchers, and seem at times to en- 

 joy darting for the same, and returning to their perch. (This 

 is not an unusual habit with many of the family.) Their notes 

 are sharp and tremulous, and sound much like the voice of the 

 tree frog. Their food consists of the various forms of insect 

 life, grains, berries and fruits of all kinds, and for the latter 

 reason are in bad repute with the farmer; but I think the good 

 they do in the destruction of injurious worms, etc., more than 

 pays for the share they claim at the harvest. But they do have 

 a bad habit of marring the steeples of churches, and the cornices 

 of dwellings, by not only chipping holes in various places, in 

 their search for nesting places, but by drumming upon the 

 boards. 



Their nests are deep, round holes, gourd shape at the bottom, 

 chipped out by the birds in dead or decaying limbs, trunks of 

 trees, etc. Eggs four to six; varying in size. A set of four 

 eggs, taken June 1st, 1877, at Pewaukee, Wisconsin, from a nest 

 in a stub about twenty feet from the ground, measure: l.OOx 

 .79, l.Olx.74, 1.02X.77, 1.02x.76; pure transparent white; in 

 form, rather elliptical to oblong ovate. 



Subgenus ASYNDESMUS Coues. 



Bill almost colaptiue in general aspect, but with short, distinct lateral ridges, 

 as in Melanerpes; as long as head, rather longer than tarsus, not broader than 

 high at base, compressed and somewhat curved toward end; pointed, with 

 scarcely any lateral beveling. Culmeu curved and scarcely ridged; gonys straight- 

 Wings of excessive length, folding nearly to end of tail, and peculiar in pro- 

 portion of primaries; fourth quill longest, third and fifth about equal and shorter 

 than second. Inner anterior claw reaching little beyond base of outer anterior. 

 Feathers of under parts and of a nuchal collar, with the fibrilla of their colored 

 portions, enlarged in caliber, bristly, of silicious hardness, loosened and discon- 

 nected, being devoid of barbicels and booklets. Dorsal plumage compact, of 

 intense metallic luster. Feathers of face soft and velvety. Sexes alike; young 

 different. {Coues.) 



