MODOC WOODPECKER 41 



seeming intergrade between monticola and harrisi must be explained on grounds 

 other than those of such actual intermediate relationship. Sitkensis, as an 

 offshoot of the white-breasted type of the interior, may have arrived at the 

 humid coast at too recent date to be yet affected by its surroundings to the 

 extent that ha/rrisl and picoideus have been ; or it may be more resistant to 

 such an environment. In either case the slight modification of the clear white 

 breast of monticola produced by the humid surroundings would result in an 

 apparent intergrade toward liarrisi. 



On the habits of this subspecies, which probably do not differ 

 materially from those of other hairy woodpeckers, I can find only 

 the following brief comment by Joseph Dixon, quoted by Dr. Joseph 

 Grinnell (1909) : "At the three lakes back of Mole Harbor I saw 

 more of these birds than at all other places put together. Their slow 

 drumming sounded so similar to the clicking of a telegraph instru- 

 ment that we dubbed them 'telegraph woodpeckers' to distinguish 

 them from the sapsuckers." So far as I know, the nest of this wood- 

 pecker has never been reported. It is probably resident throughout 

 its breeding range. 



DRYOBATES VILLOSUS ORIUS Oberholser 

 MODOC WOODPECKER 



HABITS 



This race of the hairy woodpecker occupies a rather extensive 

 range in the interior of California, Oregon, and Washington, west 

 of the range of monticola in the Rocky Mountains, north of the 

 range of hyloscojnis in southern California, and east of the range 

 of harrisi in the above States. As might be expected, it is more or 

 less intermediate in size or coloration between the surrounding races. 

 Dr. H. C. Oberholser (1911a), who described and named it, char- 

 acterized it as "resembling Dryohates villosus leucothorectis, bat 

 larger; lower parts usually brownish white, instead of pure white." 



Grinnell and Storer (1924) say of its haunts in the Yosemite region : 

 "As with most of the allied forms, the present race ranges through 

 several life zones, from the scattered digger pines at Pleasant Valley 

 eastward through the main forest belt to the sparse tracts of Jeffrey 

 pines in the vicinity of Mono Lake. It is nowhere really common, 

 even for a woodpecker; it reaches its greatest numbers in the upper 

 part of the Transition Zone and in the Canadian Zone." 



In the Lassen Peak region, according to Grinnell, Dixon, and Lins- 

 dale (1930), "this woodpecker foraged over the trunks and larger 

 limbs of many kinds of trees both in the forests proper and where 

 there were a few trees or restricted tracts of trees in the mainlj^ un- 

 forested parts of the section. Much of each bird's time was spent on 



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