126 BULLETIN 174, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



quite solid. While feeding she uttered a peculiar, harsh, nasal cry. I shot 

 her, and then noticed a small, neatly bored hole in the south side of the pine 

 trunk, about 30 feet from the ground and away from branches. With the 

 aid of a rope, and taking a start from the saddle, I was scarcely able to climb 

 to the nest, which the male did not quit until I was well up; then he came out 

 and uttered a sudden, sharp "whip-whip-whip" in a menacing tone, remaining 

 hard by while I worked with saw and chisel. It took me nearly half an hour 

 to make an opening sufficiently large to admit the hand, as the burrow was 

 situated so extraordinarily deep. Two young, male and female, with feathers 

 just sprouting, were found on a bed of small chips at the bottom of the burrow, 

 not more than 8 inches lower than the entrance, but in the very heart of the 

 tree, the cavity being oblique and pear-shaped, and having the strong odor char- 

 acteristic of Woodpeckers' nests in general. Both parents and their progeny 

 were preserved, and are now in the American Museum collection. The irides of 

 the adults were dark cherry red; their feet, claws, and basal half of mandible 

 plumbeous, the rest of the biU being plumbeous black. 



Eggs. — The alpine three-toed woodpecker is said to lay five eggs 

 to a set, but probably the set oftener consists of fewer eggs. I have 

 seen no eggs of this subspecies; and the only measurements I have 

 been able to get are those from a set of five eggs, collected by A. 

 Treganza in Salt Lake County, Utah, on June 3, 1916; these are in 

 the P. B. Philipp collection in the American Museum of Natural 

 History. The measurements average 24.52 by 17.52 millimeters, 

 rather large for the species; the eggs showing the four extremes 

 measure 25.3 by 17.7 and 24.1 by 17.4 millimeters. 



Food. — Mrs. Bailey (1928) says that the food of this woodpecker 

 consists of "over 75 percent, destructive wood-boring larvae of cater- 

 pillars and beetles. The Three-toed Woodpeckers rank high as con- 

 servators of the forest, eliminating annually, as Professor Beal has 

 estimated, some 13,675 of the grubs most destructive to forests. The 

 scarcity of these useful woodpeckers makes their protection and en- 

 couragement especially important." 



SPHYRAPICUS VARIUS VARIUS (Linnaeus) 

 YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER 



Plates 18, 19 



HABITS 



CONTBIBUTEI) UY WiNSOB MaeEETT TyLBK 



Spring. — It is spring in the Transition Zone when in April the 

 yellow-bellied sapsucker passes through on the way from its winter 

 quarters to its breeding ground in the Canadian Zone. If spring is 

 tardy most of the trees may be leafless, but many of them have 

 blossomed, and the sap is running. 



At this season the sapsucker is light-hearted and jaunty compared 

 to the sober, quiet bird that visited us the autumn before. The breed- 



