MEARNS'S GILDED FLICKER 303 



are about oue-fourth of au iucb thick, and show the inner contour of the 

 cavity perfectly. The entrance is nearly 3 inches in diameter; inside it is 

 about 7 by 4 inches wide and 5^2 inches deep. The sides and bottom of the 

 cavity are quite smooth, considering the nature of the substance (the soft 

 inner pulp of the cactus) out of which it is excavated. It occupied only one- 

 half of the trunk of one of these giant cacti, and the rear of the cavity did 

 not quite reach the center of the plant. The eggs lay on the hardened floor, 

 and not, as usual, on a layer of chips. I am inclined to believe that a freshly 

 excavated nesting site is not habitable for some weeks, as it must require 

 some time for the exuding sap to harden. The mold before me somewhat 

 resembles a wasp's nest, both in color and shape, and if suspended from the 

 limb of a tree might easily be mistaken for one. 



E^(/8. — As to the number of eggs laid by the gilded flicker, Mr. 

 Gilman (1915) writes: "Of the twenty-seven nests examined, eight 

 had five eggs, or young plus eggs, to make count of five for the 

 set; eleven had four eggs or young, or young plus eggs; six nests 

 contained three eggs or three young; and two nests had two young 

 each. In no case did I find five young in a nest, and from the fact 

 that infertile eggs were found with three and four young in a nest, 

 it may be inferred that in many of the nests containing two, three 

 or four young, more eggs had been laid. In no nest did I find more 

 than five eggs, and I conclude that the set is from three to five eggs." 



The gilded flicker evidently lays fewer eggs than its northern and 

 eastern relatives, and the surprising thing is that there are so many 

 cases of infertile eggs, often one and sometimes two in a set. I have 

 had sets of six and seven eggs reported in collections, but these may 

 have been products of two females, where nesting holes were scarce 

 or the region overcrowded by the many birds that use these holes. 

 The few eggs that I have seen are like other flickers' eggs but either 

 dull white or only slightly glossy ; this may not be the universal rule, 

 however. The measurements of 50 eggs average 27.86 by 21.34 milli- 

 meters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 32.0 by 22.0, 

 27.78 by 22.22, and 24.61 by 20.04 miUimeters. 



Plumages. — Mr. Gilman (1915) says: "The young when first 

 hatched are not very prepossessing to any one, except perhaps the 

 parents. At first glance they remind one of the pictured restoration 

 of the Plesiosaurus, with their long twisting naked necks. The lower 

 mandible was more than an eighth of an inch longer than the upper, 

 and on the tip of each was the hard white growth used in opening 

 the shell." 



In the Juvenal plumage, which is acquired before the young bird 

 leaves the nest, the young male is similar to the adult male, but the 

 forehead is usually tinged with dark red ; the red malar patch is duller 

 and less uniform ; the upper parts are grayer, less brownish, and more 

 heavily barred; the primaries are tipped with brownish white; the 

 under parts are grayish white, more profusely, but less distinctly, 

 spotted; the black patch on the breast is smaller and more central; 



