2^2 MEARNS, Arizona Mountain Birds. [July 



tain timber is icy or the weather uncommonly fierce; then it is usually 

 accompanied by flocks of Cassin's Purple Finches, Red-backed Juncos, and 

 its boon companions, the Slender-billed Nuthatches. About the middle of 

 June the young leave their nests, and soon after make a partial migration 

 downward towards the lower border of the pine belt, in common with 

 many other birds that breed at high levels. 



Dryobates pubescens orececus. Batchelder's Woodpecker. — This 

 bird breeds sparingly through the Pinus ponderosa belt, ascending into 

 the spruce zone on the San Francisco cone. It is the rarest of the Wood- 

 peckers here enumerated. A male selected a sounding dry aspen, and 

 drummed regularly above my camp, high up on San Francisco Mountain 

 during the early part of June, 1SS7, at which season the nights were still 

 intensely cold and this species was probably not yet breeding. 



Picoides americanus dorsalis. Alpine Three-toed Woodpecker. — 

 Breeds commonly throughout the pine belt, seldom ascending far into the 

 spruce woods of the highest peaks. On the northwestern slope of San 

 Francisco Mountain I discovered a nest of this species on June 8, 1SS7. 

 The female was seen alone, pecking at a large yellow pine which, al- 

 though dead, still retained its bark and was quite solid. While feeding, 

 she uttered a peculiar, harsh, nasal cry. I shot her, and then noticed a 

 small, neatly bored hole in the south side of the pine trunk, about thirty 

 feet from the ground and away from branches. With the aid of a rope, 

 and taking a start from the saddle, I was scarcely able to climb to the 

 nest, which the male did not quit until I was well up; then he came out 

 and uttered a sudden, sharp -whip-iv/iip --whip in a menacing tone, remain- 

 ing hard by while I worked with saw and chisel. It took me nearly half 

 an hour to make an opening sufficiently large to admit the hand, 

 as the burrow was situated so extraordinarily deep. Two young, mule 

 and female, with feathers just sprouting, were found on a bed of small 

 chips at the bottom of a burrow, not more than eight inches lower than 

 the entrance, but in the very heart of ihe tree, the cavity being oblique 

 and pear-shaped, and having the strong odor characteristic of Wood- 

 peckers' nests in general. Both parents and their progeny were pre- 

 served, and are now in the American Museum collection. The irides of 

 the adults were dark cherry-red; their feet, claws and basal half of man- 

 dible plumbeous, the rest of the bill being plumbeous black. 



Sphyrapicus thyroideus. Williamson's Sapsucker. — Breeds very 

 commonly at the highest altitudes, frequenting the spruce and fir woods. 

 It seldom descends far into the pine belt during the breeding season, al- 

 though it is found in the pines in winter, occasionally descending even to 

 the cedars in severe weather; and after the nesting season it frequently 

 roves down to the pine woods with its young. When shot, it usually 

 fastened its claws into the balsam bark and remained hanging there after 

 life was extinct. 



The specimens of this bird procured during the breeding season exhibit 

 certain peculiarities of plumage, as compared with Pacific coast exam- 

 ples and winter migrants to Arizona, which, if constant, would warrant 



