LAND BIRDS. 371 



"U. S. Department of Agriculture, and reported on by Professor F. E. L. Beal, 

 showed 56 percent of animal matter, 39 percent of vegetable matter and 5 

 percent of sand. INIore than three-fourths of the animal matter consisted 

 of ants, so that they formed at least 45 percent of the entire food for the year. 

 In two cases the number of ants in single stomachs exceeded 3,000. Other 

 conspicuous insects found in the stomachs were large ground beetles, 

 mainly carabids, and others presumably beneficial. On the whole the 

 insect food of the Flicker does it little credit and its vegetable food does 

 not help the record much. It eats corn in the milk, and at least twenty 

 varieties of fruits, mostly wild. However, it eats cultivated cherries and 

 grapes, as well as candleberries or wax-myrtle berries (Myrica cerifera) 

 and berries of the poison ivy and poison sumac. On the whole its food 

 shows it to be of little economic account one way or another. 



It nests commonly in May, selecting the decayed trunk of a tree and 

 excavating a hole from one to three feet in depth and usually at no great 

 height from the ground, most often from ten to thirty feet. It lays from 

 six to ten eggs, the usual number being seven or eight, but if all but one 

 or two be removed the Flicker has been known to continue laying until 

 fifty or more have been deposited. Apparently but one brood is reared 

 in a season, but, as with other birds, a second laying is made if the first 

 comes to grief. 



It has a great variety of notes, some of which are indicated with more or 

 less exactness by the common names listed above. Eugene Bicknell says: 

 "Its long rolling call is usually given from some high perch, and has a free 

 far-reaching quality that gives it the effect of a signal thrown out over 

 the barren country as if to arouse sleeping nature. This call continues 

 irregularly through the summer, but then loses much of its prominence 

 amid the multitude of bird songs. It is not infrequent in September, but 

 later than the middle of October I have not heard it. Another vocal 

 acquirement of the High-hole is a sound much like that caused by the 

 whetting of a scythe. It is hardly necessary to allude to the familiar 

 call-cry of the species, which may well have conferred the name Clape 

 which this bird bears in certain sections. In the breeding season the High- 

 hole seems to be quieter than either before or after, perhaps from con- 

 siderations of caution" (Auk, Vol. II, pp. 259-260). Captain Bendire 

 gives the following description of some of its notes: "One of their com- 

 monest calls at this season of the year [spring] is a clear whick-ah, whick-ah; 

 another sounds like quit-u, quit-u, a number of times repeated; tchuck-up 

 tchuck-up, is another familiar sound uttered by them; a far-reaching 

 clape, clape, is also frequently uttered, while a quickly given rolhng or 

 rattling three-he-he-he-he and a low cack-cack-cack seems to be notes of 

 endearment. Another call, when courting its mate, sounds like ouit-ouit 

 and ends with a soft puir, puir, or a cooing yu-cah, yu-cah. Low chuckling 

 sounds are also frequently uttered during their love-making; another 

 common call note sounds like zee-ah, zee-ah and during the summer a clear 

 pi-ack, pi-ack, or pioh, is also frequently heard; in fact, no other of our 

 woodpeckers utters such a variety of sounds." 



TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION. 



Adult male: Top of head clear bluish-gray; occiput with a briglit scarlet crescent; 

 back, scapulars and wing-coverts brown, sharply barred with clear black; rump white, 

 unspotted; upper tail-coverts white, barred or marbled with black; sides of face above 



