WILLIAMSON'S SAPSUCKER. 97 



37. Sphyrapicus thyroideus (Cassin). 



WILLIAMSON'S SAPSUCKER. 



Picus thyroideus Cassin, Proceedings Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, 1850, 



1851, 349. 

 Sphyrapicus thyroideus Baird, Birds of North America, 1S58, 106. 

 (B 88, S9; C 301, 305; R 370; C 449; U 404.) 



Geographical range: Western North America; from the eastern slopes of the 

 Rocky Mountains west to the Pacific coast, and from Arizona and New Mexico northwest- 

 ward to southern British Columbia; east, in winter only, to western Texas (Concho and 

 Tom Green counties); south to Jalisco, Mexico. 



The southern limits of the breeding range of Williamson's Sapsucker, also 

 known as the "Black-breasted," "Brown," and "Round-headed" Woodpecker, as 

 far as they can be defined at present, extend through the higher mountain ranges 

 of northern New Mexico, such as the Black and Culebra mountains, the Mogol- 

 lon and San Francisco mountains of Arizona, and northward along the eastern 

 slopes of the Rocky Mountains, where it has as yet been found breeding only in 

 Colorado. However, as several specimens have been taken on Laramie Peak, in 

 southeastern Wyoming, in August, this would indicate that it breeds at least as 

 far north in this direction. I have been unable to find any records for Montana. 

 The northern limits of its summer range on the Pacific Coast include southern 

 British Columbia, where it has been taken near Similkameen in June, 1882, and 

 it breeds throughout the Cascade Mountains of Washington and Oregon and 

 southward through the Sierra Nevadas, in southern California. 



Mr. F. Stephens writes me: "I have found Sphyrapicus thyroideus feeding 

 their young in Taquitch Valley, in the San Jacinto Mountains, in southern Cali- 

 fornia, on June 20, 1893, at an altitude of about 7,500 feet, and shot the female. 

 The nest was some 45 feet from the ground, in a dead and broken fork of an 

 otherwise green fir. The nest contained three young, one of which laid dead 

 and decomposing in the bottom of the nest; the others were but a few days old. 

 In the week following I saw several more adults of this species, between 7,500 

 and 8,500 feet altitude, and succeeded in shooting two more. The locality 

 where they were obtained is in about latitude 33° 50'. I have also taken it 

 near Fort Bayard, New Mexico." 



Mr. Robert Ridgway obtained specimens near Carson City, Nevada, and at 

 Parley's Park, in the Wahsatch Mountains, in Utah, where it is known to breed, 

 and Mr. H. W. Henshaw found it to be a fairly common summer resident in the 

 mountains near Fort Garland, in southern Colorado. 



Mr. W. Gr. Smith writes me: "Williamson's Sapsucker is a common summer 

 resident in Estes Park, Colorado, where it nests mostly in dead pines, often within 

 a few feet of the ground, and again as high as 70 feet up. Full sets of fresh 

 eggs are usually found here during the first week in June. The male appears 

 to me to do most of the incubating, and hereabouts it is most often found at 

 altitudes between 7,000 and 8,000 feet, but I have also taken it at much higher 

 ones, where it nests somewhat later." 

 16896— No. 3 — 7 



