240 BULLETIN 174, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



In the more northern portions of its range, probably only one brood 

 is reared in a season, but in the South this woodpecker is said to raise 

 two and sometimes three broods. 



Pluviages. — Like other woodpeckers, the young are hatched naked 

 and blind, but the juvenal plumage is acquired before the young leave 

 the nest. In this the young male closely resembles the adult female, 

 but the colors are duller, the barring is less distinct, and the white 

 bars are suffused with brownish white; there are indistinct dusky 

 shaft streaks on the chest and little or no red on the abdomen, which, 

 if present, is more orange or yellowish; there is no clear red on the 

 head, but the gray crown is sometimes suffused centrally with dark 

 red mixed with the gray ; the hind neck is often suffused with pinkish 

 or yellowish. The juvenal female is similar to the young male, but 

 the top of the head is darker gray, or dusky, and there is less reddish 

 or yellowish suffusion anywhere. The juvenal plumage is apparently 

 worn through the first fall; I have seen it as late as December 20, 

 but Forbush (1927) says that it is shed between August and October. 

 In the first winter plumage, there is an advance toward maturity, 

 young males acquiring more red on the crown and occiput, and young 

 females on the latter. There is probably a more or less continuous 

 molt during winter, or a partial prenuptial molt in early spring, by 

 which young birds become practically indistinguishable from adults. 

 Adults have a complete postnuptial molt late in summer and early 

 m fall. 



Food. — Bendire (1895) says: 



Its food consists of about equal proportions of animal and vegetable matter, 

 and it feeds considerably on the ground. Insects, like beetles, ants, grasshoppers, 

 different species of flies, and larvae are eaten by them, as well as acorns, beech- 

 nuts, pine seeds, juniper berries, wild grapes, blackberries, strawberries, poke- 

 berries, palmetto and sour-giim berries, cherries, and apples. In the South it 

 has acquired a liking for the sweet juice of oranges and feeds to some extent 

 on thend ; but as it always returns to the same one, until this ceases to yield 

 any more juice, the damage done in this is slight. It has also been observed 

 drinking the sweet sap from the troughs in sugar camps. The injury it commits 

 by the little fruit it eats during the season is fully atoned for by the numerous 

 insects and tlieir larvae which it destroys at the same time, and I therefore 

 consider this handsome Woodpecker fully worthy of protection. 



An examination of 22 stomachs by Professor Beal (1896) showed: 

 "Animal matter (insects) 26 percent and vegetable matter 74 per- 

 cent. A small quantity of gravel was found in 7 stomachs, but was 

 not reckoned as food. Ants were found in 14 stomachs, and amounted 

 to 11 percent of the whole food. Adult beetles stand next in im- 

 portance, aggregating 7 percent of all food, while larval beetles only 

 reach 3 percent. Caterpillars had been taken by only 2 birds, but 

 they had eaten so many that they amounted to 4 percent of the whole 

 food. The remaining animal food is made up of small quantities of 



