COLAPTES AGRICOLA. 2D 



cealed, and when the ant-hills are moist it breaks into them to feed on 

 the ants or their larvae. It also perches on trees, large or small, OQ 

 the trunks or branches, whether horizontal or upright, sometimes in a 

 clinging position and sometimes crosswise in the manner common to 

 birds. Its voice is powerful, and its cry uttered frequently both when 

 flying and perching. It goes with its mate or family, and is the most 

 common species in all these countries. It lays two to four eggs, with 

 white and highly polished shells, and breeds in holes which it excavates 

 in old walls of mud or of unbaked brick, also in the banks of streams ; 

 and the eggs are laid on the bare floor without any lining." 



In Patagonia, where I have found this bird breeding in the cliffs of 

 -the Rio Negro, its habits are precisely as Azara says ; but on the pampas 

 of Buenos Ayres, where the conditions are different, there being no 

 cliffs or old mud-walls suitable for breeding-places, the bird resorts to 

 the big solitary ombu tree (Pircunia dioica), which has a very soft 

 wood, and excavates a hole 7 to 9 inches deep, inclining upwards 

 near the end, and terminating in a round chamber. 



This reversion to an ancestral habit, which (considering the modified 

 structure of the bird) must have been lost at a very remote period in its 

 history, is exceedingly curious. Formerly this Woodpecker was quite 

 common on the pampas. I remember that when I was a small boy 

 quite a colony lived in the ombu trees growing about my home ; now 

 it is nearly qxtinct, and one may spend years on the plains without 

 meeting with a single example. 



Mr. Barrows speaks as follows of this species : " Abundant and 

 breeding at all points visited. At Concepcion, where it is resident, it 

 is by far the commonest Woodpecker. The ordinary note very much 

 resembles the reiterated alarm-note of the Greater Yellow-legs ( Totanus 

 melanoleucus), but so loud as to be almost painful when close at hand, 

 and easily heard a mile or more away. They spend much time on the 

 ground, and I often found the bills of those shot quite muddy. They 

 are very tough and hard to kill, and a wounded one shows about as 

 many sharp points as a Hawk. A nest found near Concepcion, 

 November 6, 1880, was in the hollow trunk of a tree, the entrance 

 being through an enlarged crack at a height of some three feet from 

 the ground. The five white eggs were laid on the rubbish at the 

 bottom of the cavity, perhaps a foot above the ground. In the treeless 

 region about the Sierra de la Ventana we saw this bird about holes on 

 the banks of the streams, where it doubtless had nests." 



