148 BULLETIN 17 4, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Plumages. — ^Like other young sapsuckers, the young of this species 

 are hatched naked, but the juvenal phunage is acquired before they 

 leave the nest. In the juvenal plumage, in which the sexes are alike, 

 the wings and tail are essentially as in the adult ; the head and neck, 

 except for the white stripe below the eye, are dark grayish sooty, 

 though the forehead and crown are usually more or less tinged with 

 dull red ; the sides and flanks are more or less barred with dull gray 

 and white ; and the abdomen is dull yellowish white. 



By the last of July, or first of August, the molt into the first winter 

 plumage begins, with an increasing amount of red coming in on the 

 crown, throat, and breast ; at the same time the yellow of the abdomen 

 becomes brighter. This molt continues through fall and is often not 

 complete until November or later. The young bird is now much like 

 the adult. In fall birds, both adult and young, the red of the head 

 and breast is much duller than in sprmg, "Brazil red" to "dragon's 

 blood red" in the fall, and "scarlet red" or bright "scarlet" in the 

 late winter and spring; this is due, of course, to the wearing away 

 of the tips of the feathers; in early summer, just before molting, the 

 red is decidedly brilliant. 



Adults have a complete annual molt, beginning sometimes in July 

 and lasting through August or later. 



Food. — The food of the red-breasted sapsucker is much like that 

 of its close relatives in the varius group. M. P. Skinner writes to 

 me : "I have found red-breasted sapsuckers drilling on cottonwoods, 

 willows, yellow pines, and lodgepole pines: but all the actual feed- 

 ing I have seen was on willows. Mr. Michael tells me that these 

 birds work largely on the apple trees that have been planted in 

 various parts of the Yosemite Valley. When a sapsucker is at its 

 wells, it takes a sip now and then, but considerable time is used in 

 watchful guarding, or in driving away intruders or would-be rob- 

 bers. In the case of such wells as I found on willow stems, I could 

 see no established regularity in arrangement. They looked as if the 

 bark had been irregularly scaled off. In fact, such work may be 

 necessary to secure the inner bark; yet the birds actually took sap 

 at such wells. One had a dozen willow stems on which it drilled 

 and sipped in succession; each one was only a few inches from the 

 next ; and the bark of each, both above and below the wells, was worni 

 smooth. This bird went from well to well in regular order, then 

 back to the first well to begin again. Although sap formed the bulk 

 of their food in August, I have seen them also searching the bark for 

 insects during that same month." 



McAtee (1911) lists the following trees that are attacked by the 

 red-breasted sapsucker : Cottonwoods, willows, walnuts, birches, oaks, 

 barberry, sycamore, mountain-ash, pears, apples, peaches, plums, 

 apricot, orange, pepper, and blue gum (Eucalyptus). Emanuel 



