70 



THE OOLOGIST 



piece about three feet long contain- 

 ing the nesting cavity. This section 

 of the tree about ten inches in diame- 

 ter the guide and I carried, by turns, 

 to the logging camp. It was a heavy 

 lug, but the prize — that elegant stump 

 to adorn my den — vi^as surely worth it. 

 I left the stump at the logging camp 

 to be sent by them to my headquart- 

 ers at Moraine Park. It arrived at 

 the hotel a day or two before my de- 

 parture, when I was very busy with 

 some of the late nesters and the pro- 

 prietor of the hotel kindly offered to 

 pack and ship it to my home. If it 

 hasn't been used for firewood it is 

 still at Moraine Park, and my shoul- 

 der aches every time I thing of back- 

 ing it down that rough mountain side. 



About a hundred yards below the 

 nest we saw and collected a male 

 dorsalis, probably the bird belonging 

 to the nest we had taken, and the 

 same one we saw earlier in the day, 

 though, of course, we have no way of 

 telling this except that we saw no 

 other birds, either then or later in the 

 locality. 



The entrance to the nesting cavity 

 was about one and one-half inches in 

 diameter; the cavity itself about nine 

 or ten inches in depth and quite large 

 at the bottom. The eggs were laid on 

 a few chips. They are glossy white 

 and considerably larger than the eggs 

 of Red-naped or Williamson's Sap- 

 suckers. 



In the burnt timber between Bier- 

 stadt Lake and Bears Lake at an alti- 

 tude of about ninety-five hundred feet 

 we saw four male Three-toed Wood- 

 peckers, apparently dorsalis. 



413. Colaptes cafer collaris. Red- 

 shafted Flicker. — The Red-shafted was 

 the only Flicker seen. We appeared 

 to be wholly beyond the range of 

 Colaptes auratus luteus, and I saw no 

 hybrids such as I have seen almost 

 directly north of the location in south- 



western Saskatchewan. It was no- 

 where abundant but not uncommon be- 

 tween eight and nine thousand feet al- 

 titude. Three sets of eggs were taken, 

 two of eight each, and one of six, all 

 advanced in incubation. Both birds, 

 as is the case with most if not all 

 of the Woodpeckers, assist in incuba- 

 tion. The male was incubating the 

 set of six and was collected with it. 

 The nests of which many others in ad- 

 dition to those taken were seen, were 

 from nine to twenty-eight feet from 

 the ground, in holes apparently exca- 

 vated by the birds. Eggs do not differ 

 from eggs of other Flickers. 



402 a. Sphyrapicus varius mucha- 

 lis. Red-naped Sapsucker. — The Red- 

 naped was the common Sapsucker, fre- 

 quenting all suitable locations from 

 eight to ten thousand feet elevation. 

 The male and female were industin- 

 guishable except by dissection, and 

 each helped in incubation. The nest- 

 ing was carried on wholly in quaking 

 aspens, and the cavity was usually 

 fresh work, although if a nest was dis- 

 turbed they sometimes used an old 

 hole in which to deposit a second set. 

 The birds were noisy and not difficult 

 to locate. When a pair were located, 

 our method was then to look for chips 

 around the base of the trees, the tree 

 containing the nest almost invariably 

 having a large amount of chips at its 

 base. The nesting cavities were from 

 four to thirty-two feet from the 

 ground, usually from nine to fifteen 

 feet. The tree selected was generally 

 a living aspen with decaying center, 

 though occasionally a dead aspen was 

 used. The entrance was straight 

 through the living wood to the decay- 

 ed center, a good part of which was 

 hollowed out, making a rather large 

 nesting cavity, about nine inches deep, 

 with the eggs laid on a few chips in 

 the bottom. When we discovered the 



