122 LIFE HISTOEIES OF NOETH AMEBIC AN BIRDS. 



ill the Indian Territory and the eastern part of Texas. It is a constant resident 

 south of about latitude 39°, and not a few winter even at the northern limits 

 of its range. It is a common and well-known resident in suitable localities 

 throuo-hout all the Southern and Middle States within its habitat. I presume, 

 like the Red-headed Woodpecker, they are more or less irregular in their move- 

 ments at this season, depending mainly on an abundant winter food supply. 

 This handsome Woodpecker is not at all uncommon here in the adjoining coun- 

 ties of Maryland and Virginia, and is also met with in the District of Columbia. 

 Here it is a resident, and prefers the more heavily timbered bottom lands and 

 swampy woods to the hilly and drier forests. Throughout tlie northern portions 

 of its range it prefers deciduous or mixed forests to coniferous, but in the south 

 it is apparently as common in the fiat, low pine woods as in the oak hammocks. 

 Newly cleared lands in which numbers of girdled trees still remain standing 

 are favorite resorts for this as well as other species. The Red-bellied, like the 

 majority of our Woodpeckers, is a rather noisy bird. Its ordinary call note 

 resembles the "tcliurr, tchurr" of the Red-headed very closely; another sounds 

 more like "chawh, chawh," and this is occasionally varied with a disagreeable 

 creaking note, while during the mating season peculiar, low, mournful cooing 

 sounds are sometimes uttered, which somewhat resemble those of the Mourning 

 Dove. Its food consists of about equal proportions of animal and vegetable 

 matter, and it feeds considerably on the ground. Insects, like beetles, ants, 

 grasshoppers, different species of flies, and larvae are eaten by them, as well as 

 acorns, beechnuts, pine seeds, juniper berries, wild grapes, blackberries, straw- 

 berries, pokeberries, palmetto and sour-gum berries, cherries, and apples. In the 

 South it has acquired a liking for the sweet juice of oranges and feeds to some 

 extent on them; but as it always returns to the same one, until this ceases to 

 yield any more juice, the damage done in this is but sliglit. It has also been 

 observed drinking the sweet sap from the troughs in svigar camps. The injury 

 it commits by the little fruit it eats during the season is fully attoned for by the 

 numerous insects and their larvae which it destroys at the same time, and I 

 therefore consider this handsome Woodpecker fully worthy of protection. It is 

 generally a rather shy and retiring bird tlu-oughout the greater part of its range; 

 but in a few localities it is quite the reverse, and, according to Prof. D. E. Lantz, 

 has been known to excavate its nesting sites in the cornices of buildings in 

 Manhattan, Kansas. Here, as well as in some other of our prairie States, it 

 nests also in telegraph poles. 



Birds that migrate from the northern portions of their range usually arrive 

 on their breeding grounds rather early, sometimes by March 20, and shortly 

 afterwards preparations for nesting are commenced. A suitable site is readily 

 found in the decayed top of some tree, or in an old stump, near a stream along 

 the edges of a pasture, or close to some road, and less often farther in the center 

 of a forest. Deciduous trees, especially the softer wooded ones, such as elms, 

 bass wood, maple, chestnut, poplar, willow, and sycamore, are preferred to the 

 harder kinds, such as ash, hickory, oak, etc. In northern Florida they nest fre- 



