146 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



still vigorous, as well as the dead timber which is still standing. This 

 species begins to mate in April and early May. The nesting hole is 

 excavated in tamarack, balsam or spruce about 20 to 40 feet from the ground 

 and is completed about the loth of May. Doctor Merriam found them 

 from 4 to 15 feet above water in the flooded swamps of the Fulton chain. 

 From specimens in the Smithsonian Institution collected by Doctor Ralph 

 and Egbert Bagg, it is evident that the eggs are usually laid from May 18 

 to June 2. They are white like those of the Hairy woodpecker and measure 

 about .96 by .73 inches. The nests which our party found in Essex county 

 were situated both in swampy tracts and on the summits of wooded ridges. 

 One nest found by Messrs Achilles and Fuller on the summit of the Bartlett 

 ridge was carefully measured. The external diameter of the hole was 

 2 by 1 1 inches; its greatest depth, Q| inches. The distance straight back 

 from the entrance to the rear wall, 5f ; the diameter of the enlargement 

 at the bottom, 4!; the opening faced north by northeast. There were 

 three young birds in the nest and the remains of a fourth at the bottom, 

 a curious circumstance which seemed to be true of all the nests of the three- 

 toed woodpecker which we examined. 



Picoides americanus americanus Brehm 

 Three-toed Woodpecker 



Plate 6 1 



Picoides americanus Brehm. Handbuch Vogel Deutschl. 1831. p. 195 

 Picus hirsutus DeKay. Zool. of N. Y. 1844. pt 2, p. 191 



Picoides americanus americanus Brehm. A. O. U. Check List. Ed. 3. 

 1910. p. 189. No. 401 



Description. Similar to the Black-backed three-toed woodpecker, but 

 slightly smaller and the back barred or bar-spotted with white and the crown 

 of the female as well as the male spotted or streaked with white, the male's 

 crown with yellow patch as in arcticus. 



Length 8. 4-9 inches; extent 13-14; wing 4.4-4. 6; tail 3-3. 7; bill 1-1.25. 



Distribution. This species inhabits the boreal forests of North America 

 from Maine, northern New York and northern Minnesota northward to 

 central Ungava. In New York it is evidently confined to the Adirondack 



