1908] Grinnell—Biota of the San Bernardino Mountains. 63 
seems to consist in summer largely of wood-ants. The five adult 
specimens possess the relatively large bill of gravirostris, showing 
unmistakably the existence of this race as separable from that of 
the Sierras north of Tehachapi. 
Sphyrapicus varius daggetti Grinnell. Sierra Sapsucker. 
This species was in no place common. Its quiet behavior may 
have resulted in its being overlooked in some places where it 
should have been found. It appeared to be restricted to the 
Transition zone, preferably the lower Transition in the vicinity 
of water. Several were met with along the upper Santa Ana 
from two miles below Seven Oaks nearly to Big Meadows, as well 
as up into the lower Fish creek canon as high as about 7000 feet. 
One was seen at the upper South Fork cienaga, 8500 feet, June 
18, 1907. <A full-grown juvenal was taken a mile or so above 
Seven Oaks on July 10, 1905; and others in process of moult 
August 29 and 30, 1905. A family of young and adults were 
discovered near the north shore of Bear lake July 31, 1905. 
The characteristic borings of this species were to be seen 
plentifully in alders, willows, and young pines and firs. Near 
Bluff lake a species of willow (Salix bigelovii) grows in good- 
sized clumps around the numerous cienagas, and these willows 
seem to offer especial attraction to the sapsuckers. But, curious- 
ly enough, the attentions of the birds are confined to a single 
clump in a loeality and not distributed among many. The 
operations evidently prove fatal in time to the willows, and then 
perhaps another clump is attacked. The following instance came 
under my notice, August 30 to September 3, 1905, and through 
the kindness of Professor H. B. Perkins, of Throop Polytechnic 
Institute, then stopping at the Bluff lake resort, the accompany- 
ing photographs were secured. (See pls. 14,15.) The incisions 
in the bark were generally rectangular, the long axis horizontal, 
and in vertical rows. These up-and-down rows of incisions often 
ran together, making vertical grooves ; and sometimes also the rows 
were so close together as to obliterate the interval, so that the bark 
was completely gone over a considerable space. The trunk above 
this zone of attack was always partly or entirely dead. I twice 
watched the sapsucker at work at these borings, and it seemed to 
