214 BULLETIN 17 4, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



trees in the vicinity were cottonwoods, but there was one oak 150 

 feet east of the nesting site. There were six other holes in the stub, 

 all on the north side and from G to 18 feet above the ground." 

 Grinnell and Storer (1924) write: 



The more intensive occupancy of the Yosemite Valley during recent years and 

 the operations of the government employees in promptly removing dead but 

 standing trees to be cut up for wood has operated to the detriment of the 

 woodpeclvers wliich seek such trees for nesting holes. So it was no surprise, in 

 May, 1919, to find a number of telephone or electric power poles near Redwood 

 Lane which had been prospected for nesting sites by woodpeckers — the Cali- 

 fornia, to judge from the size of hole and genefal location. Dearth of suitable 

 natural sites had forced the birds to at least investigate these newly estab- 

 lished dead- tree substitutes. With no substitutes at all available, the only 

 result to be logically looked for, as a result of man's interference with the 

 n'atural order of affairs, would be the disappearance of woodpeckers. The 

 question arises here as to the justification of the admiuistratiton in so altering 

 natural conditions in National Parks as to threaten the persistence there of 

 any of its native denizens. 



Eggs. — The California woodpecker lays ordinarily four or five 

 eggs; six eggs are not very rare; and as many as ten have been 

 found in a nest, probably the product of two females. The eggs 

 vary from short-ovate to elliptical-ovate. They are pure white, with 

 very little or no gloss. The measurements of 52 eggs average 25.98 

 by 19.78 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 

 29.9 by 19.0, 27.9 by 22.6, 22.0 by 18.6, and 24.38 by 18.29 millimeters. 



Young. — The period of incubation is said to be about 14 days, in 

 which both parents assist. Both also help to feed the young. Harriet 

 Williams Myers (1915) made some interesting observations on a late 

 brood of young California woodpeckers, which she found in a hole 

 in a telephone pole, on September 11, between Los Angeles and 

 Pasadena. She says : 



In an hour's watching the birds fed 28 times, the shortest interval being one- 

 half minute, the longest eight. In nine minutes they fed eight times. 



On the loth of the month, when I believe the young must have been about 

 ten days old, they were fed 24 times in 58 minutes. The food given them now 

 was mostly acorns which the adults took from the nearby poles, sometimes 

 digging them out in pieces, and sometimes taking them to the top of a flat pole 

 where they pounded away for some minutes before coming to the nest with 

 their bills stuffed full of the white bits. From this time until the young left 

 the nest they were fed mostly on these acorns. 



One of her most interesting observations was that an apparently 

 young bird, presumably a fully grown member of an earlier brood, 

 joined the two parents that were feeding the young in the nest. At 

 one time, this immature bird entered the nest, while the parents were 

 away, apparently for the purpose of being fed by them, and remained 

 there for some time. Meanwhile — 



when the adults came to feed they did not go inside but reached over, fed, 

 and flew away. Three times one of them did this, but the fourth time, when 



