276 BULLETIN 17 4, UNITED STATES NATIONAI. MUSEUM 



rapid and regular and resembled the bill movement of a woodpecker while 

 "drumming." It also suggested the stroke of a piston. 



In this case the top of the stump had been broken off, leavmg the 

 nest open and exposed, so that every motion could be clearly seen 

 from a distance of not over 15 feet. After the young had left the 

 nest, he discovered that "the nest was left in a terribly foul state, 

 the bottom being a disgusting mass of muddy excrement alive with 

 wriggling worms. * * * These young, however, managed to keep 

 very clean and all, so far as I could discover, were perfectly free 

 from vermin." Apparently the old birds find it difficult to clean 

 the nest after the young reach a certain size. 



W. I. Lyon (1922) tells an interesting story of a screech owl that 

 adopted and brooded a family of young flickers, after its own nest 

 in the same tree had been broken up twice; the owl even brought 

 in part of a small bird, perhaps intending to feed it to the young 

 flickers, which were all the time being fed by their parents and were 

 successfully raised. 



Plumages. — Miss Sherman (1910) gives a very good description 

 of the naked and blind nestling, as follows : "The pellucid color of the 

 newly hatched Flicker resembles that of freshly sun-burned human 

 skin, but so translucent is the nestling's skin that immediately after 

 a feeding one can see the line of ants that stretches down the bird's 

 throat and remains in view two or three minutes before passing 

 onward. This may be witnessed for several days while the skin 

 assumes a coarser red, until it begins to thicken and become a bluish 

 hue, before the appearance of the pin-feathers. These may be de- 

 tected under the skin on the fifth day at the same time that bristle- 

 like projections about one-sixteenth of an inch long announce the 

 coming of the rectrices and remiges." 



Mr. Burns (1900) says: "It is not known when the white mem- 

 branous process which extends from either side of the base of the 

 lower mandible disappears, but it probably goes at a very early age. 

 This formation is apparently peculiar to all young woodpeckers, 

 as suggested by Frank A. Bates, in the Ornithologist and Oologist^ 

 Vol. XVI, p. 35, but its use is unknown." A photograph, published 

 by E. H. Forbush (1927), shows that this does not wholly disappear 

 until the young bird is nearly fledged; its function is probably to 

 help guide the regurgitated food from the mouth of the adult into 

 the throat of the young bird during the feeding method noted by 

 Miss Sherman (1910). 



The young flicker is fully fledged in its ju venal plumage when 

 it leaves the nest ; and, contrary to the rule among birds, this plumage 

 more nearly resembles the plumage of the adult male than that of 

 the old female, as the young of both sexes have the black malar 

 patches. The black bands on the upper parts are much broader, the 



