RED-HEADED WOODPECKER 197 



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

 varies from four to seven, sets of five being most frequently found, 

 while occasionally as many as eight eggs have been taken from a nest. 

 Mr. R, C. McGregor records taking a set of ten eggs of the red-head, 

 varying in size from ordinary down to that of the song sparrow. 

 Incubation varied from fresh in the smallest ^^'g to advanced in the 

 larger (Oologist, vol. 5, p. 44, 1888)." 



If the first set of eggs is taken, another set will be completed within 

 the next 10 or 12 days, usually in the same hole. Like the flicker, this 

 woodpecker is very persistent in its attempt to raise a brood and will 

 keep on laying, if repeatedly robbed. C. C. Bacon (1891) , of Bell, Ky., 

 reports taking six sets of eggs, 28 eggs in all, from the same nest in a 

 single season, after w^hich the birds drilled a new hole in the same tree 

 and raised a brood of four young; this persevering pair drilled two 

 holes and laid 32 eggs before they succeeded in raising a brood. 



The eggs vary in shape from short ovate to rounded ovate, are pure 

 white in color, and somewhat glossy when incubated. The measure- 

 ments of 54 eggs average 25.14 by 19.17 millimeters ; the eggs show- 

 ing the four extremes measure 27.18 by 19.30, 26.16 by 20.57, 23 by 

 18.20, and 23.11 by 17.78 millimeters. 



Young. — Incubation is said to last for about 14 days. Both sexes 

 assist in this duty, as well as in the care of the young. As an 'igg is 

 laid each day, and, as incubation often begins before the set is com- 

 plete, the young may hatch on different days. 



Mr. DuBois writes to me that one nest that he watched held newly 

 hatched young on June 11 ; they were in the nest on July 7 but had left 

 before 2 p. m. on the 9th, making the period in the nest approximately 

 27 days. He says : "The newly hatched, naked young have extremely 

 long necks, longer in fact than their bodies. The four young all 

 faced inward, each toward a point to the right of the center of the 

 nest; and when in repose, each neck crossed the necks of the two 

 others at right angles to its own — like woof and warp in a loom. A 

 little noise on my part made all four of them stretch their necks straight 

 upward; but when they collapsed, their necks became again inter- 

 woven. Each lowered its head to its own right side of the one opposite 

 it. There were ^^g shells still in the nest." 



Julian K. Potter (1912) says of a nest that he watched at Camden, 

 N. J.: 



The old birds fed the young at varying intervals, sometimes going to the nest 

 once in every three or four minutes for a half hour, then not appearing again 

 for fifteen or twenty minutes. * * * 



The young birds left the nest about June 25. On that day I saw them out in 

 the open, quite able to take care of themselves, although the parents fed them 

 occasionally. [This pair raised a second brood that season, and had young 

 on July 30.] Meanwhile the young of the first brood were being very much 

 misused by their parents, and were driven away whenever they came in sight ; 



