NORTHERN PILEATED WOODPECKER 171 



also south to central California and east to western Montana and 

 Idaho. 



Casual records. — Two specimens have been taken in North Dakota, 

 one at Grafton on May 30, 1905, and the other at Fargo on October 

 16, 1915. It may occur rarely in Wyoming, although no specimen 

 is at present known. The Colorado and New Mexico records are not 

 considered satisfactory. 



Egg dates. — Alberta: 18 records. May 10 to June 22; 9 records, 

 May 15 to 30, indicating the height of the season. 



Arkansas : 18 records, April 5 to May 15 ; 9 records, April 15 to 30. 



Florida : 32 records, March 22 to May 25 ; 16 records, April 10 to 23. 



New Hampshire : 6 records. May 6 to 25. 



Pennsylvania : 7 records, April 23 to May 21. 



Texas : 8 records, March 4 to May 16. 



CEOPHLOEUS PILEATUS ABIETICOLA Bangs 



NORTHERN PILEATED WOODPECKER 



Plates 20-24 



HABITS 



Contributed by Bayard Henderson Christy 



This, the largest race of CeojMoeus fileatus., inhabits the forests 

 of the Transition and Canadian Zones, from the Atlantic coast to 

 the Rocky Mountains. In the South it is replaced by G. p. pileatus 

 and in the West by C. p. picinus. The southern limit of its range lies 

 across southern Pennsylvania, West Virginia, central Ohio, southern 

 Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri. The most northerly record 

 of its occurrence is that of John Reid, noted by Bendire (1895). He 

 took a specimen on Big Island, in Great Slave Lake (lat. 61° N.). 

 Bangs (1898), who described the northern form and named it C. p. 

 ahieticola, believed that in the mountains of Virginia and West 

 Virginia lay the line of transition from the southern to the northern 

 form; but later investigators have determined that the line lies, as 

 first noted above, somewhat northward of Bangs' location. 



The characteristics that distinguish the northern from the southern 

 form are gi-eater size, longer bill, slatiness rather than sootiness of 

 the black of the plumage, and greater extent of the white areas. 



Catesby (1731) depicted the bird (in its southern form) and called 

 it "the large red-crested woodpecker"; and Linnaeus (1758), citing 

 Catesby as his source, named it, for his purposes, piJeatus (= crested). 

 Following Linnaeus, the English naturalist Latham (1783) began in 

 1781 to publish his General Synopsis; and he, lacking knowledge of 

 the bird in its haunts, and finding Catesby's circumlocution unwieldy, 

 took from Linnaeus's Latin, as a name for common usage, "pileated 



