1 64 



SUMMER BIRDS. 



entrance of the valley, but rarely to be heard over five miles within. 

 Mr. Burroughs reports it as common just out ot the mountains, 



Chordediles popetue (Meill.) Baird. Night-hawk. 

 Several times noticed. 



FAMILY PICID^: WOODPECKERS. 

 It would be idle to speculate on the possible occurrence in the Cats- 

 kill Mountains of either of the Three-toed Woodpeckers. 



Picus Tillosns L. Hair)- Woodpecker. 



Not uncommon. Two were shot near the top of Slide Mountain 

 showin>j; on the crown the red featherino" of the vouno- of the year; 

 though scarcely appreciable in the female, this was conspicuous in 

 the male bird. Another bird of the )ear was without indication of 

 this character. 



Pieus pubesceus L. Downy Woodpecker. 



Though several times noticed in the neighborhood of Pine Hill, 

 this common bird was not elsewhere observed. 



Sph.yropicus varius (L.) Baird. Yellow-bellied Woodpecker. 



Rather common about the head of the valley, often descending close 

 to the ground on small trees and even bushes, and once noticed on 

 a prostrate log. Mr. Pearsall discovered a nest of the species, " about 

 twelve feet from the ground in an immense dead pine stub," which 

 contained six fresh eggs, June i. " The aperture was so small that 

 had I not witnessed the female bird go through, I should have thought 

 it impossible for her to do so." For an account of another instance 

 of this bird breeding in the Catskills, see " Wake Robin," pp. 107-S. 



Hylotomns pileatus (L.) Baird. Pileated Woodpecker. 



With regard to this species Mr. Burroughs writes me : " I spent 

 part of last August [1881] near the head of Dry Brook in the south- 

 ern Catskills. I there saw and heard the Pileated Woodpecker. Last 

 fall a fox-hunter of my acquaintance shot one in Roxbury, my native 

 town." Mr. Pearsall writes of a pair of these birds which he ob- 

 served on a mountain slope falling into the Big Indian \^alley at a 

 point about halfway through its course, that: "One alighted about 

 two hundred feet from me in a live tree whose top was blasted. The 

 pair were nesting on the slope I am fully convinced." James \\ . 

 Dutcher — guide, whose dwelling is directly across the valley from 

 the point where these observations were made, stated that previous 

 to this time the pair had been very noisy and he had heard them 

 through the spring. 



