RED-SHAPTED FLICKER 291 



female, which were apparently mated. And two young in juvenal 

 plumage, one almost pure cafer and the other equally near auratus, 

 were taken from the same family. 



Although the general color fattems of the two species are strik- 

 ingly similar, or parallel, the characters that separate them are radi- 

 cally qualitative rather than quantitative, so that the numerous 

 hybrids cannot by any means be considered as intermediates between 

 subspecies. No two species of a genus could well present more strik- 

 ing contrasts in coloration in such similar patterns. 



In one species the quills are red, in the other yellow ; the male has 

 a red malar stripe in one and a black stripe in the other ; neither sex 

 in cafer has the red nuchal crescent, while both sexes have it in 

 auratu^s; cafer has the throat and fore neck gray and the top of the 

 head and hind neck brown, while these colors are reversed in aura- 

 tu^. These contrasting colors may be blended or mixed in an almost 

 endless variety of patterns in the hybrids ; and the patterns are often 

 asymmetrical, the opposite sides of the bird being quite different. 

 Some specimens of cafer show the first traces of auratus blood by the 

 presence of a few black feathers in the malar stripe, or traces of the 

 red nuchal crescent. Slight traces of cafer blood in auratus appear 

 with a mixture of red in the black malar strip, or with a tinge of 

 orange or reddish in the wings or tail. Between these two extremes 

 there is every degree of blending or mixture of the characters. 



For many years after these interesting hybrids were discovered and 

 described by Baird (1858), they were known only from the upper 

 Missouri and Yellowstone Eiver region. Later they were found to 

 be widely distributed fi^om the western border of the Great Plains 

 westward to the Pacific coast, and from Texas to southern Canada. 

 While the center of abundance of birds showing thoroughly mixed 

 characters seems to lie between the Great Plains and the Kooky 

 Mountains, evidence of hybrid blood is much more widely dispersed 

 in a gradually diminishing degree, more strongly westward and to 

 a lesser degree eastward. Dr. J. A. Allen (1892), in his excellent 

 paper on this subject, says : "Specimens with a slight amount of red 

 in the malar stripe are represented in the material I have examined 

 from Massachusetts, Long Island, New Jersey (five specmiens), 

 Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida (several), Louisiana (several), Ten- 

 nessee, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois (several), Michigan (two), and Minne- 

 sota. They seem to be quite as frequent along the Atlantic seaboard 

 as at any point east of the Mississippi Eiver." 



Food. — Professor Beal's (1910) study of 118 stomachs of the two 

 western races of the red-shafted flicker showed that 54 percent of the 

 food was animal and 46 percent vegetable matter. Of the animal 

 food, beetles constituted 3 percent, most of which were harmful; 

 there were only a few predatory carabids ; ants made up 45 percent of 



