iSSS.] BendIre oil ike Habits of the Ge/iii!^ Sphyrapiats. 235 



4. Sphyrapicus thyroideus. Williamson's Sapsucker. 



This interesting species is so unique in the entire difterence of 

 coloration of the sexes, that for a longtime they were considered 

 and described as separate species. It remained for Mr. H. W. Hen 

 shaw, then attached as Naturalist to Lieut. George M. Wheeler's 

 expedition, engaged upon the geographical exploration of Colo- 

 rado and New Mexico, in 1873, to establish their identity, he 

 finding the supposed two species paired and breeding near Fort 

 Garland, Col., in June of that year. Like Sphyrapiczis varhis 

 rmchalis^ it has an equally wide and extended range, reaching 

 from the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains to the western 

 spurs of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Ranges in California and 

 Oregon. In its habits, however, it differs considerably from the 

 three other species of the genus Sphyrapicus^ all of which seem 

 to prefer regions abounding in deciduous trees, and using these 

 as far as at present known, exclusively for nesting jourposes, 

 while Williamson's Sapsucker gives the preference to coniferous 

 forests, selecting pines to burrow in, at least as frequently as 

 aspens, and according to my own observations oftener than the 

 latter. 



Although it undoubtedly occurs in the region intervening be- 

 tween the Rockies on the east, and the Cascades on the west, I 

 cannot positively recall a single instance where I have seen this 

 bird in the entire mountain system, beginning at the Bitterroot 

 Range in Montana in the east, following the continuation of this 

 through the Blue Mountains of Washington Territory and Ore- 

 gon, as well as most of the Salmon River mountain country in 

 Idaho Territory, till I first met with it on the eastern slojoes of the 

 Cascade Range near Fort Klamath, Oregon, in the autumn of 18S2. 

 It was here Dr. Newberry obtained the type of the so-called Sphy- 

 rapicus vjilliatnsoiii. Here I saw it for the first time on Septem- 

 ber 23, and as late as November 8, of the same year, taking 

 specimens on both dates. Strange to say, all the birds I saw and 

 secured for a period covering about five weeks, at that time, were 

 females, and I only succeeded, on October 28, in seeing and 

 obtaining my first male of this species. It was obtained under 

 rather peculiar circumstances. I had only to walk a couple 

 of hundred yards from my house to find myself in a fine open 

 pine forest. Gun in hand I, as usual, took a short stroll that 



