162 BULLETIN 17 4, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



SPHYRAPICUS THYROIDEUS NATALIAE (Malherbe) 



NATALIE'S SAPSUCKER 



Plate 29 



HABITS 



Harry S. Swarth (1917) is responsible for the recognition of this 

 race, which seems to differ from the Williamson's sapsucker of the 

 Pacific coast in the same way that the northern white-headed wood- 

 pecker differs from the southern race of that species; he says: 



The differences are as worthy of recognitiou in one case as in the other. 

 It is my suggestion here that the Rocky Mountain race of the Williamson 

 Sapsucker be separately recognized on the basis of its lesser bill measure- 

 ments as compared with those of Sphyrapicus thyroideus tJiyroideus of the 

 Pacific Coast. 



As regards a name for this form, there is already one that seems to be 

 clearly available for use. A specimen from Mexico was designated by Malherbe 

 (Journ. fiir Orn., 1854, p. 171) as Plcus nataliae, and an example from any 

 part of Mexico (save possibly from the mountains of northern Lower Cali- 

 fornia) would assuredly be of the Rocky Mountain subspecies. Also in the 

 measurements given by Malherbe, length of bill ("du bee, du front 20 milli- 

 meters") places his bird unequivocally with this race. 



It is reasonably certain that in the Rocky Mountain region the species does 

 not breed south of the Mogollon Divide, though it does occur as a common 

 winter visitant in southern Arizona and over a large part of the Mexican 

 plateau. These winter visitants, as shown by numerous specimens at hand, are 

 migrants from the Rocky Mountain region to the northward, and not from 

 the Pacific Coast region. So the name nataliae, as given by Malherbe to a 

 Mexican specimen, can safely be used for the Rocky Mountain subspecies, which 

 may therefore stand as Sphyrapicus thyroideus nataliae (Malherbe). 



Mrs. Florence M. Bailey (1928), referring to the striking difference 

 in plumage between the male and the female in this species, remarks : 



The cause of this strongly contrasted sexual coloration unique among the 

 woodpeckers of the United States is one of the unsolved problems of ornithology 

 that stimulates speculation and so adds zest to the study. Is it, as Mr. Swarth 

 suggests, that the female is still in a primitive stage of development? Correlating 

 the brown coloration of the pasture-frequenting flickers with the ant-eating 

 habits so marked in the Rocky Mountain sapsucker, it would seem that the 

 color of the female might have been ancestrally adapted to a more open habitat 

 than that in which the pair are found today ; or has the ant-eating habit been 

 diverted from ants that live on the ground in the open to those that live on tree 

 trunks? The feeding habits of the anomalous pair should be carefully studied in 

 the field. 



Dr. Edgar A. Mearns (1890b) says that in Arizona it "breeds very 

 commonly at the highest altitudes, frequenting the spruce and fir 

 woods. It seldom descends far into the pine belt during the breeding 

 season, although it is found in the pines in winter, occasionally de- 

 scending even to the cedars in severe weather; and after the nesting 

 season it frequently roves down to the pine woods with its young. 

 When shot, it usually fastened its claws into the balsam bark and 

 remained hanging there after life was extinct." 



