'")8;m."] PROCEEDIXG.S OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 549 



cucii of these birds could take 2 feet of the eutrails of a duck. 1 did 

 not find it couveuieut to feed tbem more frequently thau three times a 

 day, and each mealtime found them ravenous, so that probably the 

 parents provided tlnnn with much more food in the aggregate than I 

 did, and as all they brought them would probably be maggots and 

 insects, caught singly, we may form some idea of the enormous labor 

 entailed by the rearing of a young brood. These young birds have at 

 each coi ner of their mouths the usual boss or rounded mass of yellowish 

 white tissue. I have never been able to decide on the use of this. I 

 had supposed that it is intended to widen the gape, as it is largest in 

 the newly-hatched bird, but is gradually absorbed as they grow. Ex- 

 periments, however, with these youug woodpeckers led me to believe 

 that the nerves of taste, or at least of touch, are located there, for these 

 birds never would o])en their beaks to receive the food they were clam- 

 oring for at first when I touched them on the beak or breast, but the 

 moment this soft lump was touched they w^ere wide agape. 



The usual note of this rather noisy bird is a loud chncJc, but it has 

 also a harsh, prolonged, rattling cry, somewhat of the nature of the 

 kingfisher's rattle, but varied and lengtlieued with a combination of 

 stridulous screams. 



135. Dryobates pubescens. Downy Woodpecker. 



Tolerably common in wooded sections ; said to be resident. Winni- 

 peg : Uesident; abuiul.mt; breeding (Hine). Shoal Lake, May 15, 1887 

 (Christy). Ossowa (Wagner). Portage la Prair'e: Tolerably common 

 resident (Nash). Lake Manitoba and westward; specimen shot at 

 Manitoba House, June IG, 1881 (Macoun). Carberry: Uncommon ; prob- 

 ably resident (Thompson). 



136. Picoides arcticus. Arctic Three-toed Woodpecker. 



Common resident in the woods, especially among spruce. Specimens 

 procured near Ked River Settlement by D. Gunn in Smithsonian In- 

 stitution collection (Blakiston). Very abundant about Hat Portage 

 in October, 1886; also in all the spruce woods near Carberry ; it is there 

 more numerous in winter than in summer, therefore it may be partly 

 migratory (Thompson). Specimens shot at the continence of Red 

 Deer Kiver and the Etimoines River (Macoun). 



On November 4, 1884, while out deer-hunting, I was guided by the 

 tapping and " churking" of a Three toed Woodpecker to the place 

 where he was busy foraging on the trunk of a spruce tree, and 

 although I scored a clean miss the bird fell dead at my feet without a 

 sign of violence about it. It was a female and the stomach conteut8,^as 

 identified by Dr. Brodie, area:; follows: Eight larvm of a Buprestis (a 

 spru(;e borer) ; five larva? of another species of Bujyrestis, five larvne of 

 a Saperda (a pine borer) ; one larva of a Lepidopter, ])robably a moth ; 

 one larva not distinguishable, aud a small quantity of wood. 



