WILD ANIMALS OP (JLACIER NATIONAL PARK. 



Order PICI: Woodpeckers^ etc. 



Family PICID.'E: Woodpeckers. 



EocKY Mountain Haiuy Woodpecker : Dvyohates villosus mont'i- 

 cola. — The Rocky Mountain form of the black and Avhite hairy wood- 

 j)ccker with the red patch at the back of its crown, one of the mcst 

 useful destroyers of wood borers, was reported by Mr. H. C. Bryant, 

 of California, from Iceberg Lake, July 27, and McDonald Creek, 

 July 31, 1917, and the following April Mr. Bailey noted it at intervals 

 from Lake McDonald to the Kintla Lakes. In 1895 several were 

 noted and one taken by INIessrs. Baile}' and Howell at St. Mary Lake. 

 Batchelder Woodpecker : Dryohates puhescens homorus.— The 

 small familiar note of this downy woodpecker may often be heard 



when the little black and white form is 

 hidden in the shadows of the forest. It 

 was seen at St. Mary chalet. Belly River, 

 and Lake McDonald, and Mr. Stevenson 

 records it from Swiftcurrent Creek. 



Arctic Three-toed Woodpecker: 

 Plcoides arcticus. — A woodpecker recog- 

 nized by his yellow crown patch as a three- 

 toed, and by his solid black back as an 

 Arctic three-toed, was seen in the woods 

 near Lake Josephine. In June, 1895, 

 Messrs. Bailey and Howell reported the 

 birds as quite common on the west slope, 

 mostly in the burnt timber, and in the 

 winter of 1899-1900 Mr. Higginson found 

 them " in great abundance " around Stan- 

 ton Lake, near the western border of the park, " on the ridges and 

 in the river bottoms." In April, 1918, Mr. Bailey saw them in many 

 of the old burns in the valley of the North Fork of the Flathead, 

 heaps of bark scales often marking the base of some dead tamarack 

 where they had been feeding. 



As the great bulk of the food of the three-toed woodpeckers con- 

 sists of the larva? of wood l)orers, they rank among the most im- 

 portant conservators of the coniferous forests. 



Alaska Three-toed Woodpecker : Plcoides americanus fasciatus. — 

 By the trail near Baring Falls, at Going-to-the-Sun Camp, hearing a 

 soft tapping on the side of a spruce stub I discovered a woodpecker 

 with the yellow patch above his bill that names him a three-toed, and 

 a white stripe down his back, barred with black, which gives him the 

 name of " ladder-back." 



From Biological .Sai vij. 



Fig. 61. — Arctic three-toed 

 woodpecker. 



