162 THE SECOND BOOK OF BIRDS 
The gold-winged woodpecker has a brown 
back with black bars, and a light breast with 
heavy black spots. His wings and tail are yellow 
on the inside. He has a bright red collar on the 
back of his neck, a heavy black crescent on his 
breast, and black cheek patches or bars running 
down from the corners of his mouth. 
The Rep-sHarreD Fuicker has red cheek 
patches instead of black, and omits the red collar 
altogether. His breast is a little grayer, and the 
wing and tail linings are scarlet. Both flickers 
have large white spots on the back, above the 
tail, which show very plainly when they fly. 
These two varieties of the flicker are found 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Their ways of 
living are the same, and what is said of one will 
do as well for the other. 
A flicker hangs himself up to sleep. He takes 
a good hold of a tree trunk, or upright limb, 
with his grapnel-shaped toes, presses his stiff tail 
against the bark, and hangs there all night. 
When he flies, he goes in great waves, as if he 
were galloping through the air. 
The nest of this woodpecker is a snug little 
room in a tree trunk, or sometimes a telegraph- 
pole. He usually selects a tree that is dead, or 
partly so, but sometimes he takes a solid one. 
The little room is cut out by the strong, sharp 
