WILLOW WOODPECKER 69 



dent winter and summer. It has been taken along the entire course of the 

 Yukon as well as at various points on the coast of Bering Sea, and thence 

 south at Kadiak and Sitka. In autumn it is a rather common visitant to the 

 coast of Norton Sound in spite of the lack of timber, and it was not uncommon 

 to see it clinging to the sides of the houses, or to the flagstaff, and other 

 similar supports ; after resting awhile, and, perhaps, tapping a few times on 

 the unproductive logs, they would leave for a more promising field. They 

 were seen at times passing from one alder patch to another, on the hill-sides, 

 and they follow the spruces and other trees to the shore of the sea. 



While I was camping in spring, at the Yukon mouth, these birds were 

 rather common in the dense bushes along this stream and its tributaries. Their 

 holes were frequently found in the decaying stubs, although I did not find 

 a nest containing eggs. This species appears to frequent deciduous thickets 

 and trees by preference, as, in addition to the various times which I saw it in 

 the interior in winter, while at the Yukon mouth, I always found it about loca- 

 tions where only deciduous trees and bushes were found, and its holes were 

 always made in cottonwood or birch-stubs. 



Judged from what little is known about them, the nesting, food, 

 and other habits of Nelson's downy woodpecker do not differ ma- 

 terially from those of its more southern relatives, except as influenced 

 by its different environment. Living in the far north, where trees are 

 small and scarce, it has to be content to excavate its nest in small 

 trees or low stumps. There are very few eggs in collections ; a set of 

 five eggs in the Thayer collection was taken from a hole 4 feet from 

 the ground in a rotten stump, near Fort Saskatchewan, Canada, on 

 June 10, 1898. These eggs are like other eggs of the species, pure 

 white, ovate in shape, and somewhat glossy. The measurements of 31 

 eggs average 19.54 by 15.43 millimeters; the eggs showing the four 

 extremes measure 21.9 by 16.1, 19.4 by 16.4, 17.5 by 15.0, and 18.65 

 by 14.28 millimeters. 



DRYOBATES PUBESCENS TURATI (Malherbe) 

 WILLOW WOODPECKER 



HABITS 



The downy woodpeckers of California were for many years all 

 called D. p. galrdneri, until Dr. Walter K. Fisher (1902) called 

 attention to the smaller and lighter-colored race, which inhabits much 

 of the coast region and nearly all the lowlands of southern Cali- 

 fornia. For this race, he very properly revived Malherbe's name, as 

 given above, for this name was based on birds taken near Monterey. 

 He gives as the characters of the willow woodpecker : 



Smaller than Dryobates piibescens gairdneri, with smaller feet; under parts 

 lighter ; the elongated superciliary patch and rictal stripe extending over sides 

 of neck, pure white, instead of smoky white of gairdneri; tertials always more 

 or less spotted with white. * * * 



Dryolates puhescens turati is a southern representative of gairdneri, which 

 it resembles in the smoky under parts and restricted areas of white on the 



