WOODPECKERS 



153 



number of small white spots on outer web; bill, black 

 ill summer, purplish slaty brown in winter; iris, deep 

 reddish-brown. Adii.t Femai.k: Very different from 

 male; crown and hindneck, dee]) drab, the back of head 

 and nape streaked (sometimes also narrowly l)arred) 

 with black; back and shoulders, broadly barred with 

 black and pale drab or {in worn summer plumage) 

 dull brownish white, the paler bars usually narrower 

 than the black ones; wings (including coverts) black, 

 barred with pale drab or dull brownish white; rump 

 and upper tail-coverts, white, spotted or barred with 

 black on sides ; tail black, the middle feathers crossed 

 with oblique bars of white (at least on inner web), the 

 lateral ones barred with white on ends ; sides of head, 

 drab, paler (sometimes whitish) around eyes, the 

 cheeks usually streaked or flecked with black ; chin and 

 tliroat, plain light drab, rarely with a center streak of 



red ; chest, usually barred with black and pale buffy- 

 brown, with a tendency to a black patch, frequently 

 with a large and well-defined patch of unbroken glossy 

 greenish-black, sometimes covering whole throat and 

 forcncck; sides and flanks, regularly barred with black 

 and pale brownish-buffy ; abdomen and center portion 

 of breast, immaculate yellow (primrose to nearly lemon- 

 yellow) ; under tail-coverts, white, with V- or U-shaped 

 bars of black; bill. etc.. as in adult male. 



Nest and Eggs. — Xk.st: In an old tree or stump, 

 usually 5 to 60 feet from the ground, liccs : 3 to 7, 

 white. 



Distribution.— ^fountain forests of western North 

 America ; breeds from southern British Columbia south 

 to southern California, southern Arizona, and central 

 New Mexico; winters in southern California cast to 

 western Texas and south into Mexico. 



There are two curious and interesting facts 

 about this handsome bird. The first is that the 

 male is the only one of the four-toed American 

 Woodpeckers who has no red feathers on the 

 top of his head — or his nape. All of the others, 

 from the big Ivory-bill to the little Downy, are 

 more or less red-headed. 



The second peculiarity is that for twenty years 

 after their discovery (in 1X53), the male and 

 female \\'illiamson's Sapsuckers were duly re- 

 corded and gravely described by ornithologists 

 as distinct s])ecies, the female tinder the name of 

 " Brown-headed Woodpecker." It was in 1873 

 that Henry Henshaw, later chief of the United 

 States Biological Survey, noticed the singular 

 circumstance that the Williamson's Sapsucker 

 and the so-called " Brown-headed \\'oodpecker " 

 had a way of occupying the same apartments. 

 Now it appears that instead of immediately enter- 

 taining visions of complicated hybridization, and 

 conjuring up consequent opportunities to dis- 

 cover " new species," Mr. Henshaw reflected that, 

 as a matter of fact, radical differences between 

 the plumage of the male and the female birds of 

 the same species were so common as to have 

 become commonplace. AMierefore he very 

 reasonably conjectured, and thereafter definitely 

 deinonstrated, that the " Brown-headed Wood- 

 pecker " was none other than Mrs. Williamson, 

 ornithologically as well as " cohabitologically," 

 and was evidently quite willing so to be and 

 remain. Result : exit one superfluous species ; 

 also the shadow of a scandal in birdland. 



William L. Sclater says it " appears to be un- 

 certain " whether this bird is actually a " sap- 

 sucker." that is, whether it bores holes in the 

 bark of trees for the purpose of getting their 

 sap, as does its eastern namesake, and adds the 

 interesting observations that if it excavates a 



hole for a nest, it usually selects for that purpose 

 an old pine or spruce tree or a rotten stump ; 

 also that ajji^arently it returns for several succes- 

 sive years to this site though a new excavation is 

 made each year. It would be interesting to know 



Drawing by R. I, Brasher 



WILLIAMSON'S SAPSUCKER (j nat. size) 



Nature gave the male of this species no red feathers for 

 his head 



how Mr. Sclater satisfied himself about the re- 

 turn of the same bird to the same tree, though 

 this does not seem inherently improbable since 

 it has been established that other species of birds 



