326 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



This is a rare species on the margin of the prairie as only two were 

 seen at Indian Head in the spring of 1892, and one at Medicine Hat 

 in 1894; a tolerably common resident at Edmonton, Alta. ; a few 

 observed along the trail between Lesser Slave lake and Peace River 

 Landing, Atha. ; not uncommon in the foothills from Calgary south 

 to Crow Nest pass in the Rocky mountains ; observed about a dozen 

 in the month of April, 1903 at Penticton, B.C.; common at Agassiz 

 and Burrard inlet, B.C., in May, 1889. (Spreadborough.) Common 

 at Grand Rapids on the Saskatchewan. (Nutting.) This species 

 exists as far north as lat. 63°. It remains all the year in the North- 

 west Territories and is the commonest species up to the fifty-sixth 

 parallel, north of which it yields in frequency to the three-toed 

 species. {Richardson.) North to Fort Simpson, on the Mackenzie 

 river; common. (Ross.) Common throughout the interior of 

 British Columbia; breeds. (Streator.) East of the Coast range, 

 B.C.; a common resident. (Fannin.) A common species in 

 winter at Lake Okanagan, B.C. ; tolerably common in the Cariboo 

 district; I have taken this form several times in the lower Eraser 

 valley. Common at Ouesnel, Cariboo district, B. C, in 1901. 

 (Brooks.) In a series of eight skins from British Columbia, one, a 

 young female, lacks the white spotting on the wing coverts char- 

 acteristic of leucomelas. (Rhoads.) This form, if it reaches the 

 coast of Bering sea at all, reaches it by way of the Northwest Ter- 

 ritories. The specimen in my collection was taken at Fort Reliance^ 

 on the upper Yukon, about Lat. 66°, and undoubtedly the bird 

 straggles still further to the north. (Nelson.) An occasional in- 

 dividual of this species was seen in the timber belt, Kenai moun- 

 tains, Alaska, but it was not common at any point visited. (Figgins.) 

 Osgood took a single specimen on Fifty-mile river a few miles above 

 Miles canyon, Yukon. (Bishop.) 



Some of the western references mentioned above doubtless belong 

 to hy Iosco pus. 



Breeding Notes. — On June nth, 1883, while in the spruce 

 bush I heard a curious chirping sound that scarcely ever seemed 

 to cease. I traced it to a small poplar tree, in whose trunk was 

 a hole about 30 feet from the ground. Having procured an axe 

 I soon had the tree down and found myself in possession of a nest 

 of young hairy woodpeckers. They w^ere in a hole, evidently the 

 work of the parent birds, about a foot deep. 3 inches wi^e inside 



