36 FOOD OF WOODPECKERS OF UNITED STATES. 



commonest woodpeckers, it subsists almost exclusively on beechnuts 

 during the fall and winter, even picking the green nuts before they are 

 ripe and while the trees are still covered with leaves. He has shown 

 that these woodpeckers invariably remain throughout the winter 

 after good nut yields and migrate whenever the nut crop fails. He 

 says: "Gray squirrels, red-headed woodpeckers, and beechnuts were 

 numerous during the winters of 1871-72, 1873-74, 1875-76, 1877-78, 

 1879-80, 1881-82, 1883-84, while during the alternate years the squir- 

 rels and nuts were scarce and the woodpeckers altogether absent;" 

 and adds that in Lewis County, N. Y., " a good squirrel year is synony- 

 mous with a good year for Melanerpes, and vice versa." In early 

 spring following a nut year, when the melting snow uncovers the 

 ground, they feed on the beechnuts that were buried during the win- 

 ter. On April 5, 1878, at Locust Grove, N. Y., he shot 6 whose 

 gizzards contained beechnuts and nothing else. 



In an interesting article in the Auk/ Mr. O. P. Hay says that in 

 central Indiana during a good beechnut year, from the time the nuts 

 began to ripen, the redheads were almost constantly on the wing, 

 passing from the beeches to some place of deposit. They hid the 

 nuts in almost every conceivable situation. Many were placed in 

 cavities in partly decayed trees; and the felling of an old beech was 

 certain to provide a feast for the children. Large handfuls were 

 taken from a single knot hole. They were often found under a patch 

 of raised bark, and single nuts were driven into cracks in the bark. 

 Others were thrust into cracks in gateposts; and a favorite place of 

 deposit was behind long slivers on fence posts. In a few cases grains 

 of corn were mixed with beechnuts. Nuts were ofteri driven into 

 cracks in the ends of railroad ties, and the birds were often seen on the 

 roofs of houses pounding nuts into the crevices between the shingles. 

 In several instances the space formed by a board springing away 

 from a fence was nearly filled with nuts, and afterwards pieces of 

 bark and wood were brought and driven over the nuts as if to hide 

 them from poachers. 



In summer Dr. Merriam has seen the redheads "make frequent 

 sallies into the air after passing insects, which were almost invariably 

 secured." He has also seen them catch grasshoppers on the ground 

 in a pasture. 



Dr. A. K. Fisher saw several red-headed woodpeckers feeding on 

 grasshoppers in the streets at Miles City, Mont., in the latter part of 

 July, 1893. Several of the birds were seen capturing these insects 

 near the hotel throughout the greater part of the forenoon. From 

 a regular perch on top of a telegraph pole or cottonwood they 

 descended on their prey, sometimes eating them on the ground, but 

 more often returning to their former post to devour them. 



t Auk, IV, 194, 195, 1887. 



