154 BULLETIN 17 4, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



would be surveyed carefully. If I kept out of sight and perfectly still, she 

 would probably begin working again a few minutes afterward, but if I moved 

 ever so little, without even making the least noise, in my own estimation, she 

 would notice it and stop working again at once. If the tree were approached 

 too closely, she would fly off, uttering at the same time a note resembling the 

 word 'jay,' or 'chae,' several times repeated, which would invariably bring the 

 male around also, who had in the meantime kept himself busy in some other 

 tree, either drumming or hunting for food. While the female was at work 

 on the inside of the excavation the male would fly to the entrance, from time 

 to time, and look in ; * * * and at other times he would hang, for five or 

 ten minutes even, just below the entrance to the burrow, in a dreamy sort of 

 study, perfectly motionless and seemingly dazed." 



Mr. Neff (1928) writes: 



They have not been found to be particularly quiet excepting during the 

 hotter summer months. At other times they have been neither noticeably noisy 

 nor silent. The outstanding features of their behavior have proven to be pug- 

 nacity and noise during the mating season and while incubating and feeding the 

 young, and an extreme curiosity at other times. In many instances the writer 

 has located them by utilizing this curiosity ; sitting motionless on a log or rock 

 after failing to find them, any sapsucker in the community would soon make 

 its presence known by a characteristic interrogative call, at first from a dis- 

 tance, gradually drawing nearer. 



In winter they seem to be quite belligerent, for on several occasions one has 

 been located by the angry noise as if of a pitched battle ; on closer investigation 

 it would be found that the sapsucker was attempting to drive some other wood- 

 pecker, generally the Gairdner, from some favorite tree. 



Voice. — Bendire (1895) says: "While the nest was being rifled of 

 its contents both parents flew about the upper limbs of the tree, 

 uttering a number of different sounding, plaintive sounds, like 

 'peeye,' 'pinck,' and 'peurr,' some of these resembling somewhat the 

 purring of a cat when pleased and rubbing against your leg. I used 

 to note the different sounds in a small notebook at the very time, but 

 scarcely ever put them down alike; each time they appeared a trifle 

 different to the ear, and it is a hard matter to express them exactly 

 on paper." 



Mr. Dawson (Dawson and Bowles, 1909) says that while he was 

 chopping out the nest the birds "made frequent approaches from a 

 neighboring tree, crying kee-a, kee-aa, in helpless bewilderment. 

 * * * Wlien all w^as over, they raised a high, strong qiw-oo, — 

 qiiS-oo, never before heard, and reminding one generically of the 

 Red-headed Woodpecker of boyhood days." 



SPHYRAPICUS THYROIDEUS THYROIDEUS (Cassin) 

 WILLIAMSON'S SAPSUCKER 



HABITS 



Williamson's sapsucker is not only one of our most unique wood- 

 peckers in its striking coloration, but it has an interesting history. 

 Owing to the radical difference in appearance between the two sexes, 



