Red-headed Woodpecker. 83 



find the originals of their crafty, independent character. 

 How much we should miss in tlie absence of these hand- 

 some, rollicking creatures from our orchards and groves! 

 No vibrant tapping on resounding, seasoned branches! 

 No amusing inspection of our movements from behind 

 intervening stubs! No merry clatter and noisy demon- 

 stration by playful groups among the gnarled trunks! 

 No flashing combinations of crimson, black, and white 

 through the somber light of the orchard ! No display of 

 the clever, original versatility which renders these birds 

 unique among the orchard residents! These and other 

 features of orchard bird life would be lacking, and hence 

 much of the charm and fascination of the orchard. 



The red-headed woodpeckers are well known through- 

 out the eastern United States and British provinces. 

 They are common westward to the eastern base of the 

 Eocky Mountains, and southward to the gulf. They are 

 said to be rare in New England. Eobert Eidgway re- 

 ports that they are permanent residents in the southern 

 portions of our State, and that they are even more abun- 

 dant in winter than in summer. He also states that 

 sometimes (probably very rarely) they make a complete 

 migration, which is very difficult to account for. These 

 woodpeckers are regularly migratory in this section, 

 about 39° 20', and their disappearance in the fall and 

 their advent in the spring are as erratic and variable in 

 time as other phases of their behavior. I have known 

 them to return to us as early as February 11th, and again 

 to delay their arrival until the 24th of April. The last 

 week of April generally finds them scattered over their 

 accustomed haunts — the groves, orchards, woods, lines of 

 telegraph poles, isolated trees, and prairie rail fences — in 

 fact, any resorts affording them food and something upon 

 which to drum. Even the trees along the traveled thor- 

 oughfares of the cities and in the parks, as well as in rural 

 localities, supply the conditions congenial to their tastes, 

 and hence they thrive as well amid the bustle of com- 

 merce as in the retired depths of the forest. Indeed, their 

 fertility of resource in supplying their larder and their 

 versatility of manners render them more pliable in their 

 dispositions than the other species of woodpeckers, and 



