144 



BIRDS OF AMERICA 



as they seem to prefer to feed there rather than 

 lower down along the trunks. In general ap- 

 pearance they much resemble the common and 

 familiar Downy, and by many people are often 

 mistaken for this bird. Unlike it, however, they 

 keep well away from human habitations and 

 generally avoid entirely such places as fruit 

 orchards and shade-trees. An easy field mark 

 for distinguishing the two is to be found in the 

 coloring on the head of the males. On the 

 Downy a scarlet band stretches across the nape, 

 while the Red-cockaded rejoices in a small 

 scarlet streak on either side of the back of the 

 head. 



The student who goes afield for the first time 

 to study the nesting habits of this bird will find 

 certain surprises awaiting him. To begin with, 

 the nesting cavity is always dug in a living pine 

 tree. Wise lumbermen do not cut a tree that has 

 a nest of this bird in it, for if they do they will 

 have their labor for nothing. The tree has a dead 

 heart. How the little Woodpecker knows this in 

 advance has not yet been revealed. The small 

 entrance-hole goes directly in, usually slanting 

 slightly upward, until the softer dead wood is 

 encountered, then it is dug straight down for 

 about a foot. Here on a bed of fine chips, picked 

 from the side of the hole, the three or four 

 glossy white eggs are laid. 



These birds have a strong attachment for their 

 nesting-tree and not only return to it vear after 

 year, but will rear their young in the same nest 

 for several consecutive seasons, if the condition 



of the tree continues to be satisfactory. Some- 

 times they are not permitted to do this, for along 

 comes that bully of the woods, the Red-bellied 

 Woodpecker, who after enlarging the entrance- 

 hole takes it for his own. 



And now comes the most curious habit of this 

 interesting bird. Before a single egg is laid each 

 spring the birds peck hundreds of small holes 

 through the bark about the nest from which the 

 turpentine at once begins to flow. This soon 

 makes a shining, sticky surface all around the 

 tree for two or three feet above the nest and for 

 several feet below it. \Miy this is done we can 

 only conjecture, although the birds doubtless have 

 a very good reason. It is certainly true that none 

 of the arits that sometimes attack young birds 

 could crawl across this no-man's-land, and it is 

 equally true that the nest will not be troubled by 

 the flying squirrels that are everywhere abundant 

 in the pine-forests of the South. 



Of the total food of the Red-cockaded Wood- 

 pecker over four-fifths is insects and the re- 

 mainder is vegetable matter, mostly seeds of 

 conifers. About one-half of i per cent, of its 

 whole food is made up of useful beetles. Other 

 items on its meat diet are wood-boring weevils, 

 leaf-eating beetles, ants, bark lice, soldier bugs, 

 caterpillars, crickets, eggs of cockroaches, grass- 

 hoppers and spiders. In addition to the conifer 

 seeds it eats seeds of the bavberrv. poison ivy. 

 and magnolia and some wild fruits. It does little, 

 if any, damage to the products of husbandry. 



T. Gilbert Pearson. 



TEXAS WOODPECKER 



Dryobates scalaris bairdi (Malhcrbc) 



A. O. U. Xumber 396 



Other Names. — Speckle-cheek ; Texan Downy.- 

 General Description. — Length, 7^ inches. Upper 

 parts, black and white, barred; under parts, grayish- 

 white. 



Color. — Adult Male: Crown, bright red, the 

 feathers dark grayish sooty basally, and with a white 

 spot in middle portion, the red tips gradually increasing 

 in length toward the nape, so that the white spots are 

 concealed behind but exposed on the crown, where also 

 the basal dusky shows; forehead with very little, if any, 

 red, passing into brownish in front ; hindncck. back, 

 shoulders, and rump broadly, sharply, and regularly 

 barred with black and white, the black bars narrower 

 than the white, and less distinct on rump ; shorter upper 

 tail-coverts, black, usually with a white spot or bar ; 

 longer upper tail-coverts and four middle tail-feathers, 

 uniform black; lateral pair, brownish-white, crossed by 

 about six broad bars of black, those on basal portion of 



outer web usually reduced to spots next to shaft; next 

 pair similar, but with about basal half of inner web, 

 uniform black ; fourth pair, black with broad white 

 spots, or broadly and irregularly edged with white, on 

 about terminal half of outer web. the inner web some- 

 times with one to three wliite spots on terminal portion ; 

 wings, black, the middle coverts with a central, usually 

 heart-shaped, spot of white, the lesser coverts (at 

 least the posterior ones) with a smaller and more 

 rounded white central spot, the greater coverts crossed 

 by two transverse series, or bands, of white spots, the 

 secondaries with six similar white hands, the first con- 

 cealed by greater coverts, the primaries similarly 

 marked ; nasal tufts, dull brownish-white to pale brown ; 

 broad stripes of brownish-white above and below side 

 of head, extending beneath eye to base of nasal tufts, 

 the two sometimes confluent on side of neck, behind the 

 black ear stripe ; cheeks, dull whitish anteriorly, barred 



