NORTHERN FLICKER 277 



vinaceous portions of the head and neck are more tinged with gray, 

 the malar patches are duller black, and the lower parts are paler 

 with duller and larger black spots than in the adult. The crown 

 is usually more or less suffused with dull red, especially in young 

 males, and sometimes the red nuchal crescent is somewhat wider or 

 more extensive; the crescent on the breast is usually smaller; the 

 yellow on the under sides of the wings and tail is duller and more 

 greenish; the black tips in the tail are duller and not so sharply 

 defined against the yellow ; and the upper tail coverts are black with 

 white spots, instead of being white and boldly barred with black, as 

 in the adult. The plumage is soft and loose in texture and the bill 

 is small and weak. 



This plumage is worn but a short time, as a complete molt begins 

 in July and is usually finished in September or October, producing 

 a first winter plumage that is practically adult. Adults have a 

 complete postnuptial molt at about the same time of year. A detailed 

 account of the progress of the molt of young birds is given by 

 William Palmer (1901) and one of the adults by Burns (1900) ; 

 both accounts are too long to be quoted here. Fall adults in fresh 

 plumage are very handsome birds, more deeply and richly colored 

 than spring birds; the upper parts are deeper brown and the lower 

 parts are suffused with yellowish buff; wear and fading produce 

 a more contrasted plumage in the spring in which the dark mark- 

 ings are less obscured and the soft suffusion has disappeared. 



The interesting and extensive hybridizing with the red-shafted 

 flicker will be discussed under the latter species. 



Food. — The flicker is more terrestrial in its feeding habits than 

 any of our other woodpeckers. It is a common sight to see one of 

 them hopping about on a lawn, or in an open place in the woods 

 and fields, probing in the ground for ants or picking up ground 

 insects or fallen berries. It is one of our most useful birds, worthy 

 of the fullest protection. Professor Beal (1911) has shown that 

 GO. 92 percent of its food consists of animal matter and 39.08 percent 

 of vegetable matter. About 75 percent of the animal food, or 45 

 percent of the entire food, consists of ants. The flicker eats more 

 ants than any other bird ; ants were found in 524 of the 684 stomachs 

 examined, and 98 stomachs contained no other food; one stomach 

 contained over 5,000 ants, and two others held over 3,000 each. 

 If it had no other beneficial habit, the flicker would deserve protec- 

 tion for the good it does in keeping in check these injurious and 

 annoying insects. Ants protect plant lice of various species, which 

 may become very injurious to many kinds of cultivated plants, in- 

 flicting serious losses for the agricultural interests; the plant lice, 

 or aphids, secrete a sweet honey-dew juice, of which the ants are 

 very fond; consequently these tiny insects are herded by the ants 



