2 26 Bendire on the Habits of the Genus Sphyrapicus. [July 



3. Sphyrapicus varius nuchalis. Red-naped Sapsucker. 



This lace of S. varius I have met sparingly in various por- 

 tions of the Blue Mountains of Oregon, Washington Territory, 

 and Idaho, and as far west as the eastern slope of the Cascade 

 Range in Southern Oregon, in the Klamath Lake region, where, 

 however, it was rare and replaced by SphvJ'apicns rziber, the two 

 species overlapping each other, but not intergrading and remain- 

 ing perfectly distinct. I first met with the nest and eggs of this 

 bird in a small aspen grove at the edge of a beautiful little park- 

 like prairie, near the summit of tlie Blue Mountains, in Grant 

 County, Oregon, on June I3, 1877.* I was escorting an Army 

 Paymaster from Caiion City to Camp Harney, Oregon, where I 

 was then stationed. After a laborious climb to the top of the 

 steep mountain at the foot of which the little mining town of 

 Caiion City nestled, I stopped for some twenty minutes to rest the 

 animals, and to eat our lunch. The spot was a lovely one ; the 

 little grove at the edge of the heavy pine forest contained perhaps 

 half a dozen aspens, that measured a foot through or more, and a 

 number of smaller ones. I had made myself comfortable under one 

 of the largest ones which stood on the outer edge of the grove, 

 watching the horses enjoying the luxuriant grass, and was busily 

 engaged in eating my lunch, sharing it with several Oregon Jays, 

 Perisoreus obsczirus, which were quite tame, and absorbed my 

 entire attention for some time. A Red-naped Sapsucker was, 

 in the meantime, flying about my tree, alight;i.ng on others in the 

 vicinity, and keeping up a constant chatter. I thought at first he 

 was jealous of the Jays, and paid no attention to him, till he flew 

 on to the tree I was sitting under, which brought out his mate. 

 Their burrow was directly over my head, about twenty feet from 

 the ground, and I might have noticed it sooner, by the fresh chips 

 dropped by the birds in excavating their burrow, and which were 

 lying all around me, had I not been entirely absorbed in watch- 

 ing the Jays, or 'Meat Birds,' as they are called there by the 

 hunters and trappers. It did not take long for one of my men to 

 climb up to the burrow and chop a sufficiently large hole in the 

 tree to insert the hand. The entrance to the burrow was exceed- 



*But I had previously found a nest with young in June, 1875, in the same locality, as 

 well as several in 1876, 



