456 WOODPECKERS. 



is closely allied. Its food consists of insects, their eggs and 

 larvae, to which it sometimes adds, according to the season, 

 seeds and berries. Audubon had the good fortune to meet 

 with it in the pine forests of the Pokono Mountains in Penn- 

 sylvania. It is, however, sufficiently common in the dreary 

 wilds around Hudson Bay and Severn River. It is remarkable 

 that a third species, so nearly allied to the present as to have 

 been confounded with it merely as a variety, is found to inhabit 

 the woods of Guiana. In this (the Picus tindulatus of Vieillot) 

 the crown, however, is red instead of yellow ; the tarsi are also 

 naked, and the black of the back undulated with white. 



This species occurs sparingly in winter in northern New Eng- 

 land and southern Canada, and representatives have been taken 

 in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Occasionally one is met in 

 summer in northern Maine and New Brunswick. 



AMERICAN THREE-TOED WOODPECKER. 



BANDED-BACKED WOODPECKER. 

 PiCOIDES AMERICANUS. 



Char. Only three toes. Above, black, thickly spotted with white 

 about the head and neck ; back barred with white ; beneath, white ; 

 sides barred with black. Adult male with yellow patch on the crown. 

 Length about 9 inches. 



N'est. In a deep forest ; an excavation in a dead tree. 



Eggs. 4- ?; cream white; 0.90 X 0.70. 



According to Richardson, this bird exists as a permanent 

 resident in all the spruce-forests between Lake Superior and 

 the Arctic Sea, and is the most common Woodpecker north 

 of Great Slave Lake. It resembles P. villosus in its habits, 

 seeking its food, however, principally on decaying trees of the 

 pine tribe, in which it frequently burrows holes large enough 

 Xo bury itself. 



This is only a rare winter visitor as far south as New Brunswick, 

 though it has been taken in Massachusetts, and Dr. Merriam has 

 found a nest in the Adirondacks. 



