542 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



out much trouble, the others had hatched. When the young leave their 

 nests they usually keep together, and often four or five may be seen playing 

 about the bark of the same tree while waiting for their parents to bring 

 them their food. 



This species is far more abundant at the West than it is in the New Eng- 

 land States. In the States of Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts 

 it is very rarely met with. It is commonly known as the Sap-Sucker, and 

 much better deserves that name than do other species to which this term is 

 also applied. Owing to the peculiar formation of its tongue and the muscles 

 connected with it, it feeds less readily upon insects, and they form a smaller 

 proportion of its food. In the spring of the year these birds prey largely 

 upon the inner bark of trees, and where they exist in great numbers often do 

 a great deal of mischief. In April, 1868, 1 visited gardens in Eacine, in com- 

 pany with Dr. Hoy, where these Woodpeckers had every successive spring 

 committed their ravages, and was eyewitness to their performance. Tlieir 

 punctures were unlike those of the puhescens, being much deeper, penetrating 

 the inner bark, and, being repeated in close proximity, becomes entirely 

 stripped off after a while, often resulting in the girdling and complete de- 

 struction of the tree. In one garden of some considerable size, all the moun- 

 tain-ash and white-pine trees had thus been killed. In prairie countries, 

 where trees are a deficiency and their cultivation both important and at- 

 tended with difficulty, these birds prove a great pest, and in a few hours may 

 destroy the labor of many years. These habits, so well known to most of 

 our Western farmers, appear to have entirely escaped the notice of our older 

 ornithologists. 



Mr. Dresser found these birds near San Antonio at all seasons of the year, 

 but ratlier rare. He shot a couple near the Medina Eiver, and Dr. Heer- 

 mann also procured the eggs in that neighborhood. 



Mr. Eidgway says that in Southern Illinois this Woodpecker is only a 

 winter resident, coming from the north in September or October, and depart- 

 ing in April. It is the only one of the eight species of Woodpeckers of 

 that section which does not breed there, and also the only one which is not 

 resident. 



Specimens of its eggs from Vermont measure .95 by .70 of an inch. They 

 are of an oval shape, a little less rounded at one end than at the other. 



Sphyropicus varius, var. nuchalis, Baird. 



THE RED-NAPED WOODPECKER. 



Sphyropicus varius, var. nuchalis, Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 103, pi. xxxv, figs. 1, 2. Sphy- 

 rojncus nuchalis, Baird, lb. 921. — Coues, Pr. A. N. Sc. 1866, 53. — Cooper, Pr. Cal. 

 Ac. 1861, 122. —Cass. P. A. N. S. 1863, 204. — Cooper, Om. Cal. I, 1870, 390. 

 Picus varius occidentalis, SuNDEVALL, Consp. Pic. 1866, 34. Cladoscopus nuchalis, 

 Cab. & Hein. 82. 



