144 BULLETIN 174, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Sphyrapicus varius nuchalis usually insists upon a new excavation each 

 year. The height of the nesting sites from the ground varies from 5 to 30 

 feet ; the full set of eggs is four or five in number ; sometimes a smaller num- 

 ber of eggs mark a full set, presumably the nest of one of last year's birds. 

 Fresh eggs may be looked for in Colorado from June 1 to 15, and should the 

 first set be taken, a second one may generally be found from ten to fifteen 

 days later; and, as a rule, the second nesting site vpill not be greatly distant 

 from the first one. Several nests of this species may be found within a short 

 distance of each other in the same aspen grove. 



Eggs. — Major Bendire (1895) says of the eggs: "The number of 

 eggs to a set varies from three to six, usually four or five ; these are 

 mostly ovate in shape, a few are more elliptical ovate; they are 

 pure white in color ; the shell is fine grained and moderately glossy." 

 The measurements of 40 eggs average 22.89 by 17.28 millimeters; the 

 eggs showing the four extremes measure 24.38 by 1G.76, 23.60 by 

 18.50, 20.83 by 16.76, and 21.34 by 16.26 millimeters. 



Young. — Major Bendire (1895) says: "I believe that both sexes 

 assist in the labor of excavating the nesting site, the female appearing 

 to do the greater part of the work, however, which is frequently very 

 laborious, and that the male also shares the duties of incubation, 

 which lasts about fourteen days." 



Food. — Again, he writes: "Its general habits are similar to those 

 of the preceding species [yellow-bellied sapsucker] , and in the fruit- 

 growing sections within its range, in southern Utah, for instance, it 

 is said to do considerable damage to the orchards in the early spring 

 and again in the fall, tapping the peach and apple trees for sap in 

 the same manner as Sphyrapicus varius does in the East. Its prin- 

 cipal food consists of small beetles, spiders, grasshoppers, ants, and 

 such larvse as are to be found under the loose bark of trees, as well 

 as v/ild berries of different kinds." 



W. L. McAtee (1911) gives a long list of trees that are attacked 

 by this species of sapsucker, among which this western race is charged 

 with doing considerable damage to many western trees, such as va- 

 rious pines, spruces, hemlocks, firs, redwood, cedars, cypresses, juni- 

 pers, cottonwoods, aspens, willows, bayberry, walnuts, hophornbeam, 

 white alder, oaks, laurels, sycamores, mahoganies, pears, apples, 

 cherries, mesquite, ironwood, maples, Ceanothus, Fremontia, western 

 dogwood, madrona, buckthorn, ashes, and probably others. 



Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1914) says, referring to the Colorado Valley, 

 where this sapsucker was evidently wintering among the willow 

 thickets: "Willows were the trees attacked by this woodj)ecker; but 

 in one case a single large mesquite, and the only one of many in the 

 vicinity, had been selected for bleeding, and its main trunk 

 and larger branches were plentifully bored. I visited this tree 

 many times during the space of three days, March 2 to 4, opposite 

 The Needles, and invariably found a sapsucker w^orking about the 



