ARCTIC THREE-TOED WOODPECKER 113 



peated about once a second for some minutes. Each time the note was 

 uttered there was a flash of whitish at the bird's eye, as though it 

 winked with each utterance. It was also heard to utter a rattling 

 note, apparently another kind of scolding cry." 



Francis H. Allen tells me that the "call-note resembles the cluch 

 used in New England to start a horse; it has a 'woodeny' quality." 

 Kalph Hoffmann (1927) says that "in the breeding season the Arctic 

 Three-toed Woodpecker makes a very loud rolling sound by drumming 

 on dry limbs and when concerned about the nest a shrill kich-er-uck- 

 a-kick. The ordinary call is tschick or tschucky A note of greeting, 

 possibly part of a love-making performance, is thus described by Mr. 

 Achilles (1906) : "Several times when the female was getting grubs 

 in the dead spruce near the hole, the male would fly from some dis- 

 tant tree and alight near her. She would see him coming and, just 

 about as he was about to alight, would spread her wings and utter a 

 'whe-e-e-e-ee.' This call, which was its loudest at its middle point, 

 rose and then fell to the same pitch at which it was begim." 



Rev. C. W. G. Eifrig (1906) heard a queer sound that "was as if 

 produced by pulling out the end of a clock spring and suddenly 

 releasing it, producing a wiry, humming sound. The author of it 

 proved to be a male of this woodpecker. In the course of the half 

 hour that I watched him he showed himself master of quite a reper- 

 toire of notes and would-be songs. When flying he would say : chut 

 chut and then rattle like a Kingfisher. When hammering on a tree 

 and preening himself, he would intersperse those actions by chuck- 

 ling : diwk^ duck^ ducky 



Field marks. — All the three-toed woodpeckers can be easily recog- 

 nized by the yellow patch on the crown of the adult male and by more 

 or less yellow in the crowns or young birds of both sexes. The crown 

 patch of the adult male arcticus is larger and extends farther forward 

 than that of tridactylus. But the best field mark for the Arctic three- 

 toed woodpecker is the solid-black back, without any white markings, 

 and in the female the solid-black crown as well ; the dorsal aspect, when 

 the bird is clinging to a tree trunk, often appears wholly black. The 

 white stripe on the side of the head, below the eye, is much wider in 

 arcticus than in tridactylus., and the latter has the back transversely 

 banded with white. 



Enemies. — ^Mr. Achilles (1906) relates the following: 



In the course of the morning, two red-breasted nuthatches tormented the wood- 

 peckers for fifteen minutes. * * * They hovered around the hole with droop- 

 ing wings, holding their tails up like wrens. One of them finally ventured into 

 the hole so far that just his tail was protruding. They would fly away when 

 the parents approached the hole, but would return as soon as the nest was un- 

 protected. After some time the male woodpecker went into the hole, evidently 

 intending to peck them in case they should look into it. During the three 

 minutes he remained in the hole, he managed to keep from looking out for one 



