192 BULLETIN 174, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



black as in P. pileatus pileatus (Linn.), the throat usually much 

 marked with sooty, and the sides and flanks but slightly marked with 

 grayish." 



Major Bendire (1895) writes of its haunts: "In the mountains of 

 Oregon, and presumably in other localities, the pileated woodpecker is 

 most frequently met with in the extensive burnt tracts, the so-called 

 'deadenings,' where forest fires have swept through miles of fine 

 timber and killed everything in its path. Such localities afford this 

 species an abundant food supply in the slowly decaying trees, and 

 are sure to atract them." 



Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930) say that in the Lassen Peak 

 region in California "individuals of this AA^oodpecker were found in or 

 among white firs, red firs, incense cedars, and yellow pines. Foraging 

 birds were often working on rotting stumps or logs close to the 

 ground. Almost invariably, even when in the tops of tall trees, the 

 birds were on dead or softened wood." 



Nesting. — J. A. Munro (1923) says: "In southern British Columbia 

 nesting begins early in May. The nest is a chiselled hole in a tree, 

 fourteen to eighteen inches deep, cut occasionally in a green cotton- 

 wood or poplar, more often in a dead pine or fir, and rarely in any 

 but the tallest trees and at a considerable distance above the ground. 

 On a cushion of fiuie chips three or four rose-white eggs are laid." 



Carriger and Wells (1919) give an interesting account of the nesting 

 of the western pileated woodpecker in Placer County, Calif. The first 

 nest, containing young birds, was found early in June 1915, "The 

 tree stood about fifteen feet from the shore of the lake and in about 

 five feet of water. At its base the diameter was about eighteen inches, 

 at the nest entrance about ten. The tree was a live aspen. * * * 



"The nest cavity was eighteen inches deep and six inches in diame- 

 ter, while the entrance was three inches in width. The entire excava- 

 tion had been made in live wood although there were plenty of large 

 dead trees near by." 



On May 16, 1916, they returned to this locality and found the birds 

 nesting in the same tree in a new hole "located three feet higher up 

 and on the opposite side of the tree." The nest contained three newly 

 hatched young and one unhatched Qgg. Another visit was made the 

 following year, on May 5, but the woodpeckers "had abandoned the 

 lake and were making their home in a tree located in the channel of 

 a small stream which flowed into the lake and about three hundred 

 yards from their former site. The nest was found to be about half 

 completed. Visits were made to it on several occasions until May 26, 

 but the birds were not seen again." 



In 1918 they were more successful. There was practically no water 

 in the lake; and, on May 2, a search was "made through the aspen 



