Auk 



[Av 

 In 



eluded that the young Flickers would speedily die, but on the 

 morning of July i, when I next visited the nest, all five proved 

 to he alive and vigorous. They had more than doubled in size, 

 and were well feathered on the head and body, while their quills 

 and tail feathers were sprouting and their eyes were wide open. 



I now noticed for the first time that their upper mandibles 

 were broadly tipped with ivory white. This so exactly resembled 

 the hardened, spur-like process which enables young birds of 

 most, if not all, species to chip their way out of the shell, and 

 which they often retain for several days after hatching, that it 

 was not until after I had taken several of the Flickers from the 

 nest and passing my finger along the bill found its surface abso- 

 lutely smooth, that I became convinced that the white tipping was 

 merely a color marking and not an excrescence. 



Another feature equally conspicuous and common to them all 

 was a whitish gland-like swelling or process on each side of the 

 lower mandible at its base, of ahout the size of the half of a small 

 pea. All five birds already showed conspicuous black or blackish 

 'moustaches,' paler, however, in two individuals than in the other 

 three. 



On June 23, when the young Flickers were naked and blind, 

 they made a low, penetrating, hissing sound whenever I shook 

 the stump or rattled the bark on the outside. This experiment, 

 repeated July 1, elicited an outcry so loud as to be distinctly 

 audible thirty yards or more away from the tree, and in general 

 effect strongly suggesting, if not also resembling, the clatter of 

 a mowing machine. I afterwards made the direct comparison 

 when a mowing machine was working near the tree and found 

 the two sounds strikingly alike. This clamor, once fairly started, 

 would be kept up for a minute or more and would then grad- 

 ually die away. 



I spent the greater part of July 6 and 7, and most of the after- 

 noon of the 9th, watching this nest. During these three days I 

 saw only the male parent. Probahly the female had been killed 

 before my vigils began, although once when the male was calling 

 near the nest, he was answered by another old Flicker, which 

 was apparently in the same tree, but which I did not see. At 

 first the male was very much afraid of me and would not go to the 

 nest while I was near it, but he gradually became accustomed to 



