THE YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUOKEE. 83 



the trunk a sharp rap with my walking stick; this had the effect of bringing out 

 a female Sapsucker, which gazed out inquisitively, and then flew to a distant 

 branch and was joined by her mate. Climbing to the hole, I found it had been 

 dug into the solid wood for about 3 inches, and, upon opening it to secure the 

 eggs, I found the depth to be about a foot. The excavation tapered from the 

 entrance to the bottom, the diameter of the latter being somewhat greater. The 

 sides had been finely and evenly chiseled, far surpassing any nest of a Woodpecker 

 that it has been iny lot to examine. The entrance itself was a marvel, being 

 about 1^ inches in diameter, and extending about 3 inches into the wood. It 

 was so perfect that it resembled an auger-bored hole. The excavation contained 

 five partly incubated eggs, of a dirty-white color, which were deposited upon a 

 good bed of chips at the bottom. The birds were not very shy, sitting around 

 on the dead limbs, preening their feathers, making short visits to some other tree, 

 and then returning. I took another set of eggs on June 8, and found the birds 

 there in summer in succeeding seasons, but took no nests." 



Mr. D. B. BiuTOws, of Lacon, Illinois, likewise informs me that the Yellow- 

 bellied Sapsucker is a common summer resident of Marshall and adjoining- 

 counties in Illinois, where it is confined almost entirely to the river bottoms. 

 He wrote me: "These birds make their appearance here the latter part of April, 

 and nesting begins by the middle of May or the first week in June. During 

 my collecting trips by skiff in the overflowed bottom lands I always met with 

 this bird, and considered it common. They are easily located by their peculiar 

 complaining but rather feeble calls, and a few moments' watching will usually 

 locate the nesting site. ^Vlien nesting they always seem' to be imeasy if their 

 nest is approached and very soon fly to the tree in which it is located. In 

 most instances it is a newly excavated cavity in a dead willow, ranging from 8 

 to 40 feet from the water or ground." 



Prof. Barton W. Evermann records it as a rare summer resident in Carroll 

 County, Indiana, where he has also obtained it in winter, on December 15, 

 1884, and January 11, 1885. 



Dr. Elliott Coues gives it as a common summer resident in the wooded 

 bottoms of the Missouri region, and found it breeding commonly along the Red 

 River in North Dakota. It appears also to be common throughout the wooded 

 regions of the provinces of Manitoba, eastern Assiniboia, and Saskatchewan, 

 Canada, and thence northward as already indicated. A set of eggs taken near 

 Fort Resolution, Great Slave Lake, in June, 1862, by Mr. Alex. McKenzie, 

 is now in the United States National Museum collection. Mr. R. MacFarlane 

 also fomid it breeding at Fort Providence, near the head waters of the Mackenzie 

 River, in the spring of 1886, this being the most northern breeding record 

 known to me; but there is a specimen in the collection which is labeled as 

 having been taken 100 miles northwest of Fort Simpson, which marks the most 

 northern known point of its range, where it probably also breeds. The western 

 limits of its breeding range in the United States are not well defined; I have no 

 records from either Kansas or Nebraska, and doubt if it breeds in the former, or 

 much beyond the eastern limits of the latter State. 



