NUTTALL'S WOODPECKER 87 



hates scalaris lucasanus, but larger; lower surface darker; upper 

 parts darker, the white bars on back averaging narrower and less 

 regular, the black bars wider; black bars on posterior lower parts 

 averaging somewhat wider." 



Very little seems to have appeared in print about this wood- 

 pecker, but, as it lives in a similar habitat to that occupied by the 

 San Lucas woodpecker, it probably does not differ materially from 

 it in habits. It lives in the lowland, desert regions and nests in the 

 giant cactus. Both races are said to be rather shy. It is replaced in 

 extreme northwestern Baja California by Nuttall's woodpecker and 

 in the extreme northeast by the cactus woodpecker. 



Griffing Bancroft (1930) states that the measurements of nine 

 eggs of this subspecies average 21.7 by 16.7 millimeters. 



DRYOBATES NUTTALLI (Gambel) 



NUTTAL^•S WOODPECKER 



Plates 11, 12 



HABITS 



Though closely resembling, superficially, the ladder-backed wood- 

 peckers of the scalaris group, Nuttall's woodpecker is a very distinct 

 species ; the ranges of the two species come together at several points 

 but do not overlap; and the habitats of the two are in different types 

 of environment. The 1931 A. O. U. Check-List gives the range of 

 nuttalU as "Upper Austral Zone west of the southern Cascade Moun- 

 tains and the Sierra Nevada from southern Oregon to northwestern 

 Lower California." 



W. Leon Dawson (1923) described the haunts of this woodpecker 

 very well, as follows : 



Although one who is forming the acquaintance of the Nuttall Woodpecker 

 soon learns where to look for him, his range is hard to characterize in terms 

 of associations. Upper Sonoran, foothill, oak, live oak, chaparral, deciduous 

 trees bordering narrow stream beds — all these apply to vuttnUl well enough, 

 but they are not exhaustive, save for the first, which is all inclusive. Within 

 Upper Sonoran limits it is, perhaps, easier to tell where he will not be found ; 

 thus, not (or only occasionally) in pine timber; not in stands of pure willow 

 (which are given over to D. pubcscens turaii) ; not in orchards, nor about 

 cultures of any sort; not, most decidedly, "nesting in giant cactus." Least of 

 all, is it "seldom found along streams," as one precocious authority avers. A 

 narrow canyon whose floor harbors sycamores and alders and bay trees, 

 nourished by a purling stream, and whose sides are lined with live oaks which 

 run up into ceanothus chaparral, is precisely the best place to look for D. 

 nuttaUi. 



Nesting. — Major Bendire (1895) quotes the following contribution 



from B. T. Gault : 



I had been out on the bowlder plain [in the San Bernardino Valley 1 several 

 hours, on the morning of April 23, 1883, collecting birds, and spying a clump 



