NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 281 



charge can be brought against it on the score of injuring trees by pecking. The 

 Red-bellied Woodpecker is more of a vegetarian than any of the others. In certain 

 localities in Florida it does some damage to oranges, but the habit is not general. 

 On the other hand, it eats quantities of ants and beetles. The Yellow-bellied Wood- 

 pecker seems to show only one questionable trait, that of a fondness for the sap and 

 inner bark of trees. Both field observations and the contents of the stomachs prove 

 this charge against it, but it is not probable that forest trees are extensively injured, 

 or that they ever will be, for aside from the fact that the bark of many trees would 

 bo unpalatable an immense number of birds would be required to do serious damage. 

 But with fruit trees the case is different. Their number is limited, and there are 

 no superfluous ones as in the forest. In localities where the bird is abundant consid- 

 erable harm may be done to apple trees, which appear to be pleasing to its taste. 

 The Pileated Woodpecker is more exclusively a forest bird than any of the others, 

 and its food consists of such elements as the woods afford, particularly the larvae 

 of wood-boring beetles, and wild fruits. The species is emphatically a conservator 

 of the forests. In describing the stomach contents of the different woodpeckers a 

 quantity of material is classed under the term 'rubbish.' The great bulk of this stuff 

 is rotten wood and bark, picked up in digging for insects in decayed timber, and 

 apparently swallowed accidentally with the food. If the six woodpeckers which had 

 eaten rotten wood are compared with respect to the quantity of this material con- 

 tained in the stomachs it is found that the Hairy Woodpecker stands at the head 

 with 8 per cent., the Downy next with 5, the Flicker with 3, the Redhead and 

 Yellow-bellied with 1 per cent, each, and the Pileated with only a trace. From 

 this it appears that the Hairy Woodpecker is preeminently a woodpecker, while the 

 Redhead and Yellow-belly do much less of this kind of work. The difference in habit 

 is obvious to the most casual observer. The Redhead is ordinarily seen upon a 

 fence post or telegraph pole hunting for insects that alight on these exposed surfaces, 

 and watching for others that fly near enough to be captured in mid-air. Unlike 

 other woodpeckers, he is seldom seen digging at a rotten branch except in spring, 

 when he prepares a home for the family he intends to rear." 



413. BED-SHAFTED FLICKER. Colaptes cafer (Gmel.) Geog. Dist West- 

 ern United States, from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific coast; north to Sitka; 

 south to Southern Mexico. 



This species replaces the Yellow-shafted Flicker from the Rocky Mountains to 

 the Pacific. In its habits, nesting and eggs it is the exact counterpart of C. auratus. 

 The eggs average a trifle larger; 1.14x.86 is the average of thirty specimens. 



413a. NORTHWESTERN FLICKER. Colaptes cafer saturatior Ridgw. Geog. 

 Dist. Northwest coast, from Northern California north to Sitka. 



The general habits, nesting, etc., of this darker colored race are the same as those 

 of C. auratus or C. cafer. 



414. GILDED FLICKER. Colaptes chrysoides (Malh.) Geog. Dist. Southern 

 California, Lower California; Southern Arizona. 



Mr. F. Stephens regards the distribution of this species in Arizona as coextensive 

 with that of the giant cactus, for he never met with it except where this singular 

 plant grows.* Mr. Scott states that it is Common throughout the giant cactus 



* Wm. Brewster on a collection of Arizona bircu. Bull. Nutt. Club, Vol. VIII, 24. 



