272 BULLETIN 17 4, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



rial is taken in from outside, but enough fine cliips are left in the 

 bottom of the hole to make a soft bed, in which the eggs are partially 

 buried. Carl W. Buchheister tells me that he once found a nest "the 

 bottom of which was 6 inches below the ground level and 12 inches 

 below the opening, a round hole which was 6 inches above the ground. 

 There was but one egg." 



Eggs. — The flicker is notorious as a prolific egg layer, but under 

 ordinary circumstances, when not disturbed, the average set consists 

 of six to eight eggs. Incubated sets of as few as three or four have 

 been found, sets of nine and ten are not very rare, and as many as 

 17 have been found in a nest at one time ; the large numbers may be 

 products of two females. Mr. Burns (1900) records the contents of 

 169 sets of the northern flicker as 11 sets of four, 16 sets of five, 35 

 sets of six, 34 sets of seven, 38 sets of eight, 17 sets of nine, 13 sets of 

 ten, 3 sets of twelve, and one each of thirteen and fourteen. Major 

 Bendire (1895) states that Steward Ogilby, of Staten Island, N. Y., 

 reports "finding a brood of not less than nineteen young Flickers in 

 one nest, all alive and ai3parently in good condition." 



If robbed of its eggs, the flicker will continue to lay new sets for 

 a long time. Dr. Barton W. Evermann (1889) "obtained thirty-seven 

 eggs in forty-nine days from a 'yellowhammer' which had its nest 

 near my house. The eggs were in seven sets, five, five, five, six, seven, 

 four, and five eggs respectively." J. Parker Norris (1888) took five 

 sets of six eggs each from a nest in Pennsylvania between May 16 

 and June 18. Several other similar cases of persistent laying have 

 been reported, all of which indicate that an egg is laid each day and 

 that the birds begin at once to replace the lost set. Mr. Burns (1900) 

 lists a number of such cases, where no nest ^^g w-as left to induce the 

 bird to keep on laying; the largest number rej)orted w^as 48 eggs in 

 65 days. My neighbor, Charles L. Phillips, tried the experiment of 

 taking one ^g'g each day, leaving one as a nest ^g'g\ he holds the 

 extraordinary record of having taken 71 eggs from one nest in 73 days ; 

 the poor bird rested only two days in the long strain of over two 

 months. 



Eggs of the flicker have sometimes been found in the nests of other 

 birds. In an old orchard, not far from my home, I once found a 

 flicker's ^g'g in a bluebird's nest, with five eggs of the latter; and in 

 another cavity in the same tree was a tree swallow's nest containing 

 five eggs of the swallow and an egg of the flicker. As this was in a 

 remote locality, it is hardly likely that the eggs were placed there 

 artificially, and the chances are that the flicker's nest had been de- 

 stroyed and she was forced to lay in the nearest available cavity. 

 Mr. Burns (1900) says : "A similar instance is recorded by E. G. Elliot, 

 Bradford, Mass., May 10th, '84, of a set of five eggs of bluebird and 

 one of flicker, nest of grass and feathers. Records of European house 



