234 NOTES ON THE 
MELANERPES ERYTHROCEPHALUS (L.). (406.) 
RED-HEADED WOODPECKER. 
In the spring of 1869, I found these birds on the campus of 
the State University as early as March 14th, and from that 
time, an occasional one also in a cluster of burr oaks, 
(Q. illicifolia), on an elevated suburb of the city, until about 
the first of May, after which they came in greater numbers, 
and from the tenth to the fifteenth, constructed their nests. 
They cannot be called a numerous species here, although fairly 
represented in a good many sections. The date of their first 
arrival varies exceedingly in different years. From 1858 to the 
year before mentioned, no local records show them to have come 
earlier than the twentieth of April, and there was one year 
when none were seen until the twelfth of May, when they were 
simultaneously observed at every point with which I had cor- 
respondence. This unusual delay was not produced by the 
infelicity of the season, for it was not an exceptionally cold, or 
a specially late one. The cause remains a mystery to me. 
About the twelfth of May they commence to excavate a hole 
in a tree, either in the neighborhood of dwellings or in the 
woods, as the case may require, in which labor the sexes en- 
gage with great industry and perseverance until the work is 
done. The hole is about half a yard in depth, and is larger at 
its extremity, from which to the entrance it is gradually tapered 
to the smallest capacity practicable for the entrance of the birds. 
It is without lining of any kind, except a few chips left by the 
carpenter, and in due time receives five or six very beautiful, 
clear white eggs. The surface of the eggs is remarkably 
polished—a characteristic common to the family, I think. 
The observation of young birds as late as the first of July gives 
a reasonable presumption that they rear two broods, but this 
may be from having been robbed of the first nest, or the ex- 
treme delay of the vernal migration. 
Their habits are so well known that it seems useless to 
record them here. Like nearly all other members of the 
family they are under the charge of destroying trees by suck- 
ing their sap—the most imbecile slander which ever lived half 
so long. Theirmouth parts have nota single adaptation to 
such a use as that of sucking, yet they may possibly eat the 
inner bark, or alburnum, in botanical parlance. Still, I do not 
believe they do even that, for the testimony of abundant ob- 
servers worthy of our highest confidence is that the boring is 
