THE FLICKER. 77 



belong to the latter class. A beautiful specimen, taken at Palo 

 Alto, Nov. 26, '<)(), resembles Audubon's C. ayrcsi, with a half 

 concealed red crescent, tipped with grey, and the orange- 

 ochraceous wings and tail of auratus ; head, throat, fore breast 

 and malar stripes of cafcr ; and intermediate back. Cross- 

 breeding is not confined stricth' to the Red-shafted ; the North- 

 western form C. c. saturatior also blends with the Yellow- 

 shafted, as exhibited in a pair collected at Puyallup, Wa.shing- 

 ton. The male taken April 8, '90, has a small patch of red on 

 either side of the occiput, strongly suggesting an incipient nu- 

 chal crescent, several creamy-white feathers contrasting with 

 the vinaceous of the rest of the breast, and the fourth rec- 

 trices are yellowish. This is probably a young bird, hatched 

 the previous summer, as quite a few of the feathers in its fore- 

 head are red. It is only recently that auratjis has come in con- 

 tact with the Gilded Flicker, C. chrysoides, if at all. A suppo.sed 

 hybrid is described in the Osprey, Vol. III., p. lo, a bird taken 

 in Arizona, showing red on the nape. No instance of the ac- 

 tual pairing and interbreeding of the pure Yellow-shafted with 

 the Red-shafted Flicker has ever been publi.shed, but a writer 

 in the Auk — Vol. II., p. 284 — mentions having witnessed the 

 courting of a true auratus and a hybrid in Southeastern Dakota; 

 and Chas. T. Morrison— 6*. and O., Vol. XIV., p. 146 — found 

 the hybrid mated with the ca/er in the Big Horn range, and se- 

 cured the eggs and parent birds. Rev. William Osburn writes 

 me that he has been informed that the hybrid mates with ca/e?-, 

 nesting and producing young. Comparing and contrasting the 

 plumage of the two species, the pattern of coloration is the 

 same, with the exception of the nape, yet excluding the cre- 

 scentric breast patch of black, there is a complete dissimilitude 

 in coloration. The prevailing color is yellow on one and 

 red on the other, even to the tint on the rump ; and the grey 

 head and brownish throat of one are transposed on the other. 

 Hybrids and mongrels present a bewildering number of regular 

 and irregular combinations. Red in the malar or nape is the 

 first to appear as well as the last to di.sappear. This color 

 about the head being characteristic of the Woodpecker famiU', 

 is in line with the Darwinian principle of hybrids, showing a 

 tendency to revert to the ancestral stock. 



In the event of the we.stern representatives becoming 



