20 BULLETIN 17 4, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



ing. Kougli-bark species were preferred — chestnuts, oaks, old 

 maples and hickories, about in the order named. Smooth-barked 

 ones received little notice." 



Dr. Morris Gibbs (1902) says: "Have my readers carefully watched 

 a Woodpecker leave its perch on the trunk or limb? The bird 

 throws itself backward from its vertical position by a leg spring, 

 together with a tail movement, turns in the air in the fraction of a 

 second and is sweeping away to the next perch. Arriving at the next 

 resting place it makes a single counteracting stroke of the wings 

 against the air, and perches lightly on the bark of limb or trunk." 



Like all woodpeckers, the hairy is an expert climber, perfectly at 

 home on the trunk of a tree, or even on the under side of a branch, 

 where its strong claws enable it to cling in almost any position or 

 to move about with astonishing rapidity and skill in any direction. 

 Its stiff tail feathers act as a prop and help to support it while ham- 

 mering away at the bark with its powerful beak. Forbush (1927) 

 says that it "is the embodiment of sturdy energy and persistent 

 industry. Active, cheerful, ever busy, its life of arduous toil brings 

 but one reward, a liberal sustenance. It sometimes spends nearly ari 

 hour of hard labor in digging out a single borer, but commonly 

 reaches the object of its quest in much less time." 



Voice. — The ordinary call of the hairy woodpecker is louder and 

 shriller than that of the downy. Francis H. Allen says, in his notes, 

 that it bears "about the same relation to it as the solitary sandpiper's 

 peet-weet does to that of the spotted sandpiper. I hear it most fre- 

 quently from the female. In fact, a female of the species that visits 

 my place at all times of the year often utters this note continually, 

 as if calling for a mate or claiming territory, but she never nests 

 very near." 



Bendire (1895) describes its ordinary note as "a shrill, rattling- 

 note, triii^ triii;''^ and again as several loud notes uttered on the wing, 

 like huip, huip. Forbush (1927) calls the ordinary note "a high, 

 sharp, rather metallic chink or click.'''' Aretas A. Saunders (1929) 

 says : "The call is a loud 'keep,' like that of the downy woodpecker, 

 but louder. Another call is a loud rattle, suggesting that of the 

 Kingfisher, but slurring down the scale. Another call, 'kuweek 

 kuweek kuweek kuweek,' is used during the mating season, and 

 suggests the Flicker's 'oweeka.' " 



Field inarh8. — The hairy woodpecker is a large edition of the 

 downy woodpecker, a black and white woodpecker, white below and 

 black above, spotted with white on the wings, and with a broad white 

 stripe down the center of the back. Only the male has the red patch 

 on the back of the neck. It can be distinguished from the downy 

 by its much larger size, its more restless behavior, its relatively 



