BACKBONED ANIMALS. 



It is a large bird, twenty-one inches long, the general color 

 black with white markings, the crest bright scarlet in the 

 male. They cling upon trees, and bore and hammer out 

 the grubs and insects there concealed, and are so powerful 

 that in a few hours they have been known to tear off thirty 

 feet of bark. The nest is pecked out of the trunk of a 

 live tree, generally beneath a branch, first directly in and 

 then downward for two or three feet, and here the six or 

 eight white eggs are deposited. Their cries are exceed- 

 ingly human, and like those of a hurt child. 



NOTE. The California woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus) is 

 remarkable for its habit of storing up acorns for winter food by boring 

 a hole in a tree and driving in the acorn so tightly that no other animal 

 can get it out. So frequent are these in some trees that they appear 

 as if studded with nails. At Mount Pizarro, where such storehouses 

 are found, the nearest oak-trees are in the Cordilleras, thirty miles dis- 

 tant ; thus each acorn required a 

 flight of sixty miles besides the labor 

 of boring the hole. 



The generic name of the 

 Night Hawks (Caprimulgi- 

 da) refers to a curious super- 

 stition that the birds milk 

 goats and cows. They are 

 generally nocturnal, have 

 short, triangular bills, enor- 

 mous mouths (Fig. 309) for 

 the capture of insects, and 

 soft plumage, that explains 

 their noiseless, quiet flight 



The whip-poor-will (Capri- 

 mulgus vociferus) is a familiar 

 form. The general color is 

 grayish, much variegated, the 



ends of the outer tail-feathers white. In all the family 

 the color is protective, their crouching positions lending 



FlG. 309. Night hawk, feeding 

 on the wing. 



