56 PACIFIC COAST AVIFAUNA No. 9 



drilling holes in the gable ends of buildings. When once a house has been se- 

 lected it seems ihat nothing short of death will cause them to cease their drilling 

 operations until one, and in some cases three or four, holes have been cui through 

 the outer wall of the building. Whether these holes, which are generally made 

 in the winter, are excavated for roosting places or simply through a sort of 

 nervous energy seems a matter of doubt; but certain it is that the birds spend 

 much time in them as soon as they succeed in completing their work. It is a 

 common sight, on rainy days, to see a Flicker's head peering out from his open 

 doorway. 



As the trees in the city and along the canals only ofifer an occasional dead 

 stub suitable for these birds, the great majority of our Flickers repair to the foot- 

 hills and to the heavier timber along the river to nest. 



May 6, 1910, a Flicker was flushed from a small willow stump not over five 

 feet high. The cavity was about eight inches deep and held six heavily incubated 

 eggs that rested on the dry, rotten chips at the bottom. This stump was near the 

 Gould ditch, two miles south of Clovis, and with one exception furnished the only 

 record of this species breeding in that vicinity, so far as I have been able to learn. 



April 7, 191 1, I noticed a great quanitity of chips at the base of a cotton- 

 wood tree near Lane's Bridge. This tree was used as a gate post, and for a 

 height of about eight feet was green with not a few branches of new leaves, but 

 for a distance of four feet or more down from the top it was quite dead. In this 

 dry part, about eleven feet from the ground, a pair of Flickers had excavated a 

 nesting cavity lifteeen inches deep and nearly eight inches in diameter at the bot- 

 tom. A visit to this nest April 29 revealed one of the birds at home and a fine 

 set of seven fresh eggs that are now in my collection. 



April 30, 1910, I flushed two Flickers from nesting cavities, one twenty feet 

 up in a Cottonwood, and the other in a knot-hole half that height in an oak. May 

 18, 1908, a brood of half-grown young were found in a hollow sycamore branch 

 near Letcher. 



This species is frequently called "yellow hammicr", a name that was, no 

 doubt, brought out by homeseekers from across the Rockies. 



Tkxas Ntghthawk. Chordeiles acutipeimis texensis Lawrence. 



"Gee ! there goes an old buUbat. I haven't seen one of them since 1 left Mis- 

 souri." It was late one April afternoon, just as the sun was dropping behind a 

 row of fig trees that concealed the western horizon, that I happened to be talking 

 with an acquaintance who was working in a vineyard. A glance in the direction 

 indicated revealed a Texas Nighthawk, flapping and tacking along in the ap- 

 parently aimless manner so characteristic of this species. 



This was not the first nighthawk that I had seen in Fresno County, as the 

 birds are abiuidant summer visitants to the lower portions of the valley, being 

 equally common throughout the vineyard sections and over the dry plains south- 

 west of the city. The earliest records that I have for the appearance of this bird 

 are those of two nighthawks observed five miles east of Fresno March 25, 191 1, 

 and a single individual seen a mile north of there the same evening. Mr. Joseph 

 Sloanaker informed me that he observed the species, near Raisin, one day earlier 

 than they were noted near the city ; and it is possible that I could have made ear- 

 lier records on several other occasions had I been able to get out into the country 



