NORTHERN FLICKER 267 



and kept only a few feet apart. It was evident that the spacing 

 was intentional and that the pursuer made no attempt to catch up 

 with the other. The flight covered a territory of several acres. It 

 was a graceful and interesting performance. 



"I supposed at the time that this sexual flight indicated that the 

 affair Avas completed, but later that afternoon I several times saw 

 a male and two females together, the females posturing and wick-up- 

 ing, the male motionless. The females showed no enmity toward 

 each other and did not face each other, as the males of two days 

 before did. They kept rather farther apart. At one time a second 

 male appeared and stayed about for a time, but he disappeared, 

 apparently without becoming a serious factor in the situation. 



"Three days later a pair of flickers, male and female, were feeding 

 peacefully together on the lawn in the morning and in the afternoon, 

 and I judged that the marital arrangements of at least two of my 

 flickers had been completed." 



More active courtship on the part of a female flicker is thus de- 

 scribed in some notes from Lewis O. Shelley : "On April 24, co- 

 incident with a male flicker's message from the elm stub, a female 

 and a second male appeared. All three were later in the cherry tree 

 by our garden, perched on branches some three feet apart. The 

 female took the initiative in the following activities and, perched 

 crosswise of the branch, often bobbed and ducked up and down, then 

 crosswise of the branch jerked to left, right, left, right, head cocked 

 erect and with tail fully spread. At times the males, less actively, 

 did likewise, but for the most part perched noncommittally, silent and 

 still, giving but few calls. At one time, after the female had dis- 

 played intermittently several times, and when the males had been 

 still for some five miiuites, she sidled up to the nearest male and 

 again displayed with much wing-fluttering and tail-spreading and 

 sidewise twitchings; then the same to the other male who flew when 

 her actions of bobbing and bowing face to face commenced. Not to 

 be outdone, or so affronted, she flew after him, then the second male 

 followed." 



C. W. Leister (1919) noticed an aerial courtship evolution of the 

 flicker, of which he says: "When first noticed, he was about fifty 

 feet from the ground and ascending in peculiar, bumpy, and jerky 

 spirals. This was maintained until a height of about 350-400 feet 

 was reached, when, after a short pause, a reverse of practically the 

 same performance was gone through. The Flicker {Colaptes auratus 

 luteus), for as such he was identified by this time, then alighted in a 

 cherry tree, just above a female that we had previously failed to 

 notice, and completed the performance by going through his more 

 familiar courting antics." 



