358 THE NORTHERN FLICKER. 
Length 12.00-12.75 (304.8-323.9); av. of thirteen Columbus specimens: wing 
6:13) (55:7); taill4-34) (aro) bill ream) 
Recognition Marks.—Size not comparable to that of any better known bird; 
white rump; yellow “‘flickerings’” in flight; pectoral crescent; black-spotted 
breast, etc. 
Nest, an excavation in a tree or stump, usually made by the bird, at moderate 
heights ; unlined, save by chips. Eggs, 4-10, usually 7 or 8, glossy white. Av. size, 
IJOIe) SE doI5) (Aza? x Zio). 
General Range.—Northern and eastern North America, west to the eastern 
slope of the Rocky Mountains and Alaska. Occasional on the Pacific slope from 
California northward. Accidental in Europe. 
Range in Ohio.—Abundant. Sparingly and irregularly resident throughout 
the state, increasingly southward. 
FEW birds are better known in town or country than this noisy, energetic 
and usually confiding Flicker. He is perhaps better known hereabouts under 
the name Yellow-Hammer, but this title has long been preempted by an Old 
World Bunting, Amberiza citrinella,and its use in the present connection should 
be discontinued. All the greater pains should be taken to employ an American 
name for this bird, because he is a true son of the soil, widely distributed, char- 
acteristic, familiar, and if unhindered, well able to adapt himself to the rapidly 
changing conditions of American life. 
It is perhaps as a musician that the Flicker is best known. The word 
musician is used in an accommodated sense, for the bird is no professional 
singer, or instrumental maestro; but so long as the great orchestra of Nature 
is rendering the oratorio of life, there will be place for the drummer, the 
screamer, and the utterer of strange sounds, as well as for the human obligato. 
The Flicker is first, like all other Woodpeckers, a drummer. ‘The long rolling 
tattoo of early springtime is elicited from some dry limb or board where the 
greatest resonance may be secured, and it is intended both as a musical per- 
formance and as a call of inquiry. Once, as a student, the writer roomed 
in a large building, whose unused chimneys were covered with sheet-iron. A 
Flicker had learned the acoustic value of these elevated drums, and the sound 
of this bird’s reveille at 4:00 A. M. was a regular feature of life at “Council 
Ffall.” 
‘The most characteristic of the bird’s vocal efforts is a piercing call delivered 
from an elevated situation, clape or kly-ak, and cheer or kee-yer. ‘The scythe- 
whetting song is used for greeting, coaxing or argumentation, and runs from 
a low wee-co, wee-co—through wake-up, wake-up, wake-wp—to an emphatic 
wy-kle, wy-kle, wy-kle, or, in another mood sounds like flicker, flicker, flicker, 
Altho the bird is resident more or less throughout the state, it is not able 
to withstand the most severe weather, and its numbers are greatly augmented 
by the returning migrants in spring. In the early days of April courtship 
