CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN BIRDS. 299 
commonest species up to the fifty-sixth parallel, north of which it 
yields in frequency to the three-toed species. (2Rchardson.) 
North to Fort Simpson, on the Mackenzie River; common. 
(Ross.) This form, if it reaches the coast of Behring Sea at all, 
reaches it by the way of the Northwest Territories. The specimen 
in my collection was taken at Fort Reliance, on the upper 
Yukon, about Lat. 66°,and undoubtedly the bird straggles still 
further to the north. (WVe/son.) Common throughout the interior 
of British Columbia; breeds. (Stveator.) East of the Coast 
Range, B.C.; a common resident. (/anmin.) A+ common 
species in winter at Lake Okanagan, B.C.; tolerably common in 
the Cariboo district; I have taken this form several times in 
the lower Fraser valley. (Srvooks.) In a series of eight skins 
from British Columbia, one, a young female, lacks the white 
spotting on the wing coverts characteristic of Jlewcomelas. 
(Rhoads.) 
The last references mentioned here evidently belong to the 
form the writer places under Ayloscopus. 
BREEDING Nores.—On June 11th, 1883, while in the spruce 
bush I heard a curious chirping sound that scarcely ever seemed 
to cease. I traced it to a small poplar tree, in whose trunk was 
a hole about 30 feet from the ground. Having procured an axe 
I soon had the tree down and found myself in possession of a 
nest of young hairy woodpeckers. They were ina hole, evidently 
the work of the parent birds, about a foot deep, 3 inches wide 
inside and 2 at the entrance. The four youngsters were nearly 
grown and fledged, and consequently were much crowded in this 
narrow chamber. Three of them were precisely like the mother- 
bird in colour and the fourth differed only in having over each 
ear a cockade of rich yellow. (Zhompson-Seton.) A plentiful 
species in Ontario where I have met with it both in summer and 
winter. At the latter season it is often seen on wood piles in the 
vicinity of houses. It breeds along the St. Lawrence and north- 
ward. Unlike the other woodpeckers it is an early breeder, com- 
mencing its nest-hole the «nd of April and usually having its 
complement of eggs laid by May 6th. Most of the nests I have 
seen have been in wet places or near water, and almost all were 
in white ash trees, from thirty to fifty feet from the ground. Two 
nests were in elm trees and one ina telegraph pole by the road- 
side not more than ten feet from the ground. In this nest-hole 
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