66 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



most common in the oak belt and the deciduous trees along water courses, rarely 

 being- met with among the conifers. It is a resident and breeds throughout the 

 greater portion of California west of the Sierra Nevadas, but is nowhere especially 

 common. In southern Oregon it appears to be rare, and the only specimens 

 recorded from this State are the one taken by Dr. J. S. Newberry in the Umpqua 

 Valley, which is in the United States National Museum, but has no date on the 

 label, and another taken near Ashland, now in the collection of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. It is apparently more abundant 

 in southern California than elsewhere. Mr. F. Stephens reports it there as a 

 common resident below the pine region, in which it occurs but sparingly. Mr. 

 Charles A. Allen writes me: "It breeds among the oak groves and perhaps 

 among the willows along the Sacramento River, but I never found it far away 

 from the oaks. Its habits are similar to those of Gairdner's Woodpecker, but its 

 notes are quite different — so much so as to be appreciated even by a novice." 



Mr. H.W. Henshaw describes the call of Nuttall's Woodpecker as consisting 

 of a series of loud rattling notes, much prolonged, and says: "They can not be 

 compared with those of any other Woodpecker with which I am acquainted." 

 He further states: " This Woodpecker is a bird particularly of the oak groves, 

 and ranges from the lower valleys of the mountains to a height of at least 6,000 

 feet, where, near Fort Tejon, I found it fairly numerous among the pines, this 

 being the only locality where I found it among the conifers." ^ 



Mr. A. W. Anthony, in his list of "Birds of San Pedro Martir, Lower 

 Cahfornia," published in "Zoe" (Vol. IV, p. 236), says: "Common along all 

 the timbered streams as high as 4,000 feet, or the limit of the live oaks and 

 sycamores." 



Mr. RoUo H. Beck, of Berryessa, California, writes me as follows: "Nuttall's 

 Woodpecker is a fairly common resident in the mountains to the east of Santa 

 Clara County. It seems to prefer the oak trees to other kinds, climbing up and 

 down the limbs, much the same as Gairdner's does, in the search for grubs and 

 insects. On May 13, 1892, I found a female digging a cavity for a nest on the 

 under side of a dead oak limb, about 24 feet from the ground; the cavity was 

 about '8 inches deep and not yet completed. Next day, while walking down a 

 small gulch, I saw a female fly from a hole in a sycamore limb, which had been 

 split off from the main trunk and lodged on a limb of another tree close by. 

 The under side of the Hmb was dead, but the upper part was still living. Red- 

 shafted Flickers had dug several holes in the same limb, and one of these 

 contained eggs. I procured a rope and returned to this tree about four hours 

 later, and when I had climbed to within 4 feet of the nest the female flew off. 

 On examination I found that the nest contained young, just hatched; both 

 parents remained close by and uttered notes of protest until I left. They appear 

 to be partial to gulches, where white and live. oak trees are numerous, and I 

 have not noticed any in the valleys, among the willows along streams, where 

 Gairdner's Woodpeckers are common." 



'Geographical Surveys West of the 100th Meridian, 1876, p. 258. 



