WILLIAMSON'S SAPSUCKER 157 



four to six in number. On June 18', 1907, a nest with small young was located 

 ten feet up in an exceptionally large nearly dead tamarack pine. This was 

 one of the lowest of a series of forty-seven well-formed holes of similar external 

 appearance, which penetrated this one tree trunk on all sides up to an estimated 

 height of thirty-five feet. 



W. L. Dawson (1923) writes: "One soon comes to recognize the 

 rigid requirements of the Williamson Sapsucker in the matter of 

 nesting sites. Given a pine wliich is beginning to die at the top, 

 usually in a fairly sheltered situation, and a pair of birds will adopt 

 it for a permanent home. They will occupy it from year to year, 

 or perhaps the year around, nesting twice in a season; and a long 

 occupation is evinced by a trunk riddled with holes at all levels. 

 One such 'family tree,' closely examined, had 38 holes, apparently 

 complete and fit for habitation or incubation. At the time of our 

 visit, on June 19th, the male was industriously drilling a new excava- 

 tion at a height of 45 feet." 



Major Bendire (1895) says: 



I obtained my first set of eggs of this species on June 3, 1883, about 9 miles 

 north of Fort Klamath, in the open pine forest on the road to Crater Lake. 

 It consisted of five eggs, slightly incubated. The nesting site was excavated 

 in a partly decayed pine whose entire top for some 20 feet was dead ; the 

 height of the excavation from the ground was about 50 feet. The man climbing 

 the tree reported it to be about 8 inches deep and about 5 inches wide at the 

 bottom, and freshly made. A second set, of sis fresh eggs, was taken June 12 

 of the same year, about 12 miles north of the Post, at a still higher altitude 

 than the first one. It came also out of a pine about 40 feet from the ground. 

 A third nest, found a week later, near the same place, contained five young, 

 just hatched. This nest was in a dead aspen, about 20 feet from the ground. 

 Only one brood is raised, and, like the other two species, it is only a summer 

 resident in the vicinity of Fort Klamath. 



Other observers have found nests in lodgepole pines, red firs, and 

 larches at various heights from 5 to 60 feet above ground but always 

 in conifer associations. 



Eggs. — Bendire (1895) says: "The number of eggs laid to a set 

 varies from three to seven, sets of five or six being most often found. 

 These, like all woodpecker's eggs, are pure china-white in color; 

 the shell is close grained, rather thin, and only slightly glossy. In 

 shape they vary from ovate to elongate ovate, and a few approach 

 an ovate pyriform, a shape apparently not found in the eggs of 

 other species of this genus." The measurements of 30 eggs average 

 23.54 by 17.23 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes 

 measure 25.91 by 17.27, 24.1 by 18.3, and 20.1 by 15.4 millimeters. 



Young. — Both parents assist in the duties of incubation, but the 

 length of time required for this function does not seem to be definitely 

 known ; both sexes also help in feeding the young. Dr. J. C. Merrill 

 (1888) says, of two nests that he watched for some time: "The males 



