35 8 THE NORTHERN FLICKER. 



Length 12.00-12.75 (304.8-323.9); av. of thirteen Columbus specimens: wing 

 6.13 (1557); tail 4.34 (II0.2); bill 1.34 (34-)- 



Recognition Marks. Size not comparable to that of any better known bird ; 

 white rump; yellow "flickerings" in Might; pectoral crescent; black-spotted 

 breast, etc. 



Nest, an excavation in a tree or stump, usually made by the bird, at moderate 

 heights : unlined, save by chips. Eggs, 4,-iQ, usually 7 or 8, glossy v/hite. Av. size, 

 1.09 x .85 (27.7 x 21.6). 



General Range. Northern and eastern North America, west to the eastern 

 slope of the Rocky Mountains and Alaska. Occasional on the Pacific slope from 

 California northward. Accidental in Europe. 



Range in Ohio. Abundant. Sparingly and irregularly resident throughout 

 the state, increasingly southward. 



FEW birds are better known in town or country than this noisy, energetic 

 and usually confiding Flicker. He is perhaps better known hereabouts under 

 the name Yellow-Hammer, but this title has long been preempted by an Old 

 World Bimt'mg,Emberiza citrinclla.and its use in the present connection should 

 be discontinued. All the greater pains should be taken to employ an American 

 name for this bird, because he is a true son of the soil, widely distributed, char- 

 acteristic, familiar, and if unhindered, well able to adapt himself to the rapidly 

 changing conditions of American life. 



It is perhaps as a musician that the Flicker is best known. The word 

 musician is used in an accommodated sense, for the bird is no professional 

 singer, or instrumental maestro; but so long as the great orchestra of Nature 

 is rendering the oratorio of life, there will be place for the drummer, the 

 screamer, and the utterer of strange sounds, as well as for the human obligato. 

 The Flicker is first, like all other Woodpeckers, a drummer. The long rolling 

 tattoo of early springtime is elicited from some dry limb or board where the 

 greatest resonance may be secured, and it is intended both as a musical per- 

 formance and as a call of inquiry. Once, as a student, the writer roomed 

 in a large building, whose unused chimneys were covered with sheet-iron. A 

 Flicker had learned the acoustic value of these elevated drums, and the sound 

 of this bird's reveille at 4:00 A. M. was a regular feature of life at "Council 

 Hall;" 



The most characteristic of the bird's vocal efforts is a piercing call delivered 

 from an elevated situation, dope or kly-ak. and cheer or kce-ycr. The scythe- 

 whetting song is used for greeting, coaxing or argumentation, and runs from 

 a low wcc-co, wcc-co through wake-up, wake-up, wake-up to an emphatic 

 wy-kle, wy-klc, wy-klc, or, in another mood sounds like flicker, flicker, nicker, 



Altho the bird is resident more or less throughout the state, it is not able 

 to withstand the most severe weather, and its numbers are greatly augmented 

 by the returning migrants in spring. In the early days of April courtship 



