'I"IIE RED-SHAFTED FLICKER. 447 



found til tiin]x-r-linc in the Cascades, where shading into next; ])artiall_\- resident 

 in winter. 



Authorities.— I Lewis and Clark. Hist. E.x. ( i<Si4) Ed. I'.iddle: Cones, \ol. 

 11..]). 1S5J:' C. ci;/.-/-. Allen, 1;. X. (). C. \'I. ( i.SSi 1, p. 128. iT). L'.i?) !)'. 

 Sr. D-'. S"s'. Ss^. J. i:. 



Specimens. — (L'.otW. i I", i'rov. 11. 1!.\. 



.X.XTL'RE has not dealt justly with the East-side l"'licl<er in the matter 

 of pnniding an abundance of dead liniher for nesting sites. What more 

 natural, then, than that the stinted liird should joyfully fall upi>n the tirsl 

 ■■frame" houses and riddle them with holes? The front door of a certain 

 country parsonage near North Yakima testifies to at least one pastoral \aca- 

 tion, hy the ]iresence of three large Flicker holes in its panels. The church 

 hard by is dotted with tin patches which conceal this bird's haiidiwork; and the 

 mind recalls with glee how the irreverent Flicker on a sutnnier Sunday replied 

 to the parson's fifthl}-, Ijy a mighty rat-at-at-at-al on the weather siding. The 

 district schoolhouse of a neighboring township is worst served of all, for forty- 

 one Flicker holes punctuate its weather-beaten sides — reason enough, surely, 

 for teaching the young idea of that district how to shoot. Indeed, the school 

 directors became so incensed at the conduct of these naughty fowls that they 

 offered a bounty of ten cents a head for their destruction. Hut it is to laugh to 

 see the fierce energy with which these birds of the plains, long dejjrived of 

 legitimate exercise, fall to and ])erforate such neglected out]>osts of learning. 

 The bird becomes ob.sessed by the idea of filling a particular wall ftill of holes, 

 and no ingenuity of man can deter him. If work during iniion hours is dis- 

 couraged, the bird returns stealthil\- to his task at four a. m., and chisels out a 

 masterpiece before breakfast. If the gun speaks, and one bird falls a martyr to 

 the sacred cause, another comes forward ])romptly to take his place, and there 

 is alwaxs some patriotic Flicker to u])hold the rights of academic research. 



Of course the situation is much relieved in the timbered foothills and 

 along the wooded banks of streams, where rotten stubs abound. The Micker is 

 at home, also, to the very limit of trees in the Cascade Mountains. Xests are 

 ordinarily e.\ca\aled late in April, and any tree or stump may serve as host. In 

 Okanogan County I saw a Flicker's nest in a stump only two feet high, and its 

 eggs rested virtually upon the ground. Others occur in li\e willows, cotton- 

 woods, and apple trees, as well as in dead pines — the List named occasionally at 

 a height of si.xty or seventy feet. They nest also in the walls of buildings, in 

 which case they lug in the chips to lay on beam or sill, and so prevent the eggs 

 from rolling. In Chelan County a nest was found in a l)ank of fine earth among 

 those of a colony of Bank Swallows. True to tradition the birds had gone down- 

 ward after entering this bank. E.xcavation proved to be such a j'lea.sant task 

 that they had dug a hole not only eighteen inches deep but two feet long and one 

 wide, measured liori/.ontallv. Three ctibic feet of earth these indnstri- 



