2IO MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



107. Dryobates villosus (Linn.). 

 Hairy Woodpecker. 



Uncommon visitor in autumn and winter ; one summer record. 



SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. 



October 5, 18S7, one im. female seen, near Cambridge, W. Brewster. 



October 10 — April 15. (Summer?) 

 May 2, 1 88 1, one seen, Cambridge, C. F. Batchelder. 



August 25, 1S97, one seen, Arlington, W. Faxon. 



NESTING DATES. 



April 22 — May 5. 



The Hairy Woodpecker may be found in the Cambridge Region from 

 October to April, but it occurs oftenest during October and November. Al- 

 though its numbers vary from year to year, it is never really common, three or 

 four birds being as many as any one observer, however acute and diligent, is 

 likely to meet with in a single season. Most of them occur in the wilder, 

 more heavily wooded portions of Arlington, Belmont and Waltham, for the 

 Hairy Woodpecker is, by nature, a retiring, forest-loving species. Nevertheless 

 it sometimes appears in densely populated localities and even in the very heart 

 of our cities and larger towns. I have seen it in the elms on Boston Common 

 (on November 14, 1903) and in Cambridge it has been observed, during the past 

 ten or fifteen years, with increasing regularity and frequency, usually in or near 

 the grounds of Harvard College or in the large shade trees along Brattle Street. 

 In 1905 a pair frequented our garden from early in January to the latter part of 

 April, feeding greedily on suet, often in company with Chickadees and Downy 

 Woodpeckers. 



I am not aware that the Hairy Woodpecker has ever been found breeding 

 in the Cambridge Region, but Mr. Walter Faxon tells me that he has noted it in 

 Arlington in late summer — on August 25, 1897. It still nests regularly — 

 if but very sparingly — in Lincoln and Concord, whence, no doubt, come some 

 of the birds which visit Cambridge in autumn and winter. Others, perhaps, are 

 derived from Maine and New Hampshire, for the Hairy Woodpecker, although 

 certainly not habitually migratory, — like the Sapsucker and Flicker, for exam- 

 ple, — is, nevertheless, somewhat given to wandering southward in autumn, at 

 least from the forests of northern New England. 



