54 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMEEICAl^ BIRDS. 



rather rare summer resident. He found it breeding in a cottonwood tree, near 

 San Bernardino, on March 29, 1885. Mr. Lyman Belding took several nests of 

 this subspecies in Calaveras County, in the Sierra Nevadas; in one, found on 

 June 6, 1879, which had been excavated in a dead pine stump, 12 feet from the 

 ground, the eggs, three in number, were on the point of hatching. In his notes 

 he says: "I scared the female from it and prevented her retiu-n by inserting- a 

 stick, the end of which protruded for several feet. When she found she could 

 not enter she gave several cries, which brought the male, who hopped up and 

 down the stick a few times, striking it with his bill and screaming angrily, paus- 

 ing occasionally, and apparently deliberating on the best method of extracting 

 it." Another nest, found by him on July 10, 1880, was located only 3 feet from 

 the ground, and contained young which were still in the nest on the 20th. Mr. 

 Charles A. Allen informs me that along the Sacramento River, in California, it 

 breeds in sycamores and willows, but that it is not common there. 



I have met with Cabanis's Woodpecker in most of our Northwestern States, 

 but found it nowhere very common. I took my first nest near Camp Harney, 

 Oi'egon, on May 29, 1875, in a canyon on the southern slopes of the Blue Moun- 

 tains, at an altitude of about 5,000 feet. The cavity was excavated in the main 

 trunk of a nearly dead aspen, about 12 feet from the ground. The entrance 

 hole was about If inches in diameter, and the cavity about 9 inches deep. It 

 contained four much incubated eggs. The female was in the hole, and stayed 

 there looking out until I had struck the tree several times with a hatchet, when 

 she flew off and alighted on one of the limbs of the tree, uttering cries of dis- 

 tress, which brought the male, who was still more demonstrative, hopping from 

 limb to limb, squealing and scolding at me and pecking at the limbs on which 

 he perched. At Fort Klamath, Oregon, it was somewhat more common, and 

 here I took several of its nests. It appears to be especially abundant in tracts 

 in which the timber has been killed by fire, and where many of the slowly 

 rotting trunks still remain standing. Such burnings are frequently met with in 

 the mountains, and seem to attract several species of Woodpeckers, presumably 

 on accoiTut of the abundance of suitable food to be found. Full sets of eggs 

 may be looked for in ordinary seasons during the first ten days in May, and 

 occasionally even earlier, as I found a nest with foxir young, several days old, 

 on May 21, 1883. Inasmuch as this Woodpecker nests rather early, it is pos- 

 sible that two broods are raised in a season. Dead or badly decayed trees are 

 preferred to live ones for nesting purposes, and deciduous trees to conifers; 

 it also nests occasionally in firs and madrono trees. 



Like the Hairy Woodpecker, Cabanis's is very noisy, especially in the early 

 spring. It likewise is a great drummer, and utters a variety of notes, some of 

 which sound like "kick-kick, whitoo,whitoo, whit-whit, wi-wi-wi-wi," and a hoarse 

 gutteral one, somewhat like "kheak-kheak" or "khack-khack." It is one of our 

 most active Woodpeckers, always busy searching for food, which consists princi- 

 pally of injurious larva3 and eggs of insects, varied occasionally with a diet of 

 small berries and seeds, and in winter sometimes of pinon nuts, pine seeds, and 



