134 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



this respect. They are quite variable in shape; the majority are ovate, others 

 short and elliptical ovate, and a few approach subpyriform, while some are 

 nearly perfect ovals. An egg is deposited daily until the set is completed, and 

 incubation lasts about fifteen days; this ordinarily does not begin until the set 

 is completed, but now and then young birds and eggs in different stages of 

 advancement are found in the same nest. The young are able to leave their 

 nest in about sixteen days; they crawl about on the limbs of the tree for a couple 

 of days before they A'enture to fly, and return to the nest at night. The parents 

 are rather suspicious about the nesting site, and endeavor to keep out of sight 

 as much as possible, even where not molested; they are devoted in the care of 

 their young, and will frequently allow themselves to be captured on the nest. 

 In the more northern portions of their range only a single brood is raised in a 

 season; in the south possibly two. The return migration to their winter homes 

 usually begins about the latter part of September, and is occasionally protracted 

 from four to six weeks later in favorable localities. 



The average measurement of one hundred and ninety-six eggs of this species 

 in the United States National Museum collection, mostly from the more northern 

 portions of its range, is 27.96 by 21.50 millimetres, or about 1.10 by 0.85 inches. 

 The largest egg of the series measures 30.48 by 22.86 millimetres, or 1.20 

 by 0.90 inches; the smallest, 24.64 by 20.83 millimetres, or 0.97 by 0.82 inch. 

 Three sets of eggs — two of five and one of six — taken in Putnam County, 

 Florida, by Dr. William L. Ralph, average only 25.82 by 20.52 millimetres, or 

 about 1.02 by 0.81 inches. The largest of these eggs measures 26.42 by 21.34 

 millimetres, or 1.04 by 0.84 inches; the smallest, 24.89 by 18.03 millimetres, or 

 0.98 by 0.71 inch, which is quite a perceptible difference in size. 



The type specimen, No. 24612 (not figured), from a set of ten eggs, was 

 taken on June 8, 1891, by Mr. R. MacFarlane, near Cumberland House, Sas- 

 katchewan, Dominion of Canada. 



47. Colaptes cafer (G-melin). 



EED-SHAFTED FLICKER. 



Picus cafer Gmelin, Systema Naturae, I, 1788, 431. 

 Colaptes cafer Ste.inegek, Standard Natural History, IV, 1885, 428 

 (B 9S, C 314, R 3786, C 459, U 413.) 



Geographical range: Western North America; from the Isthmus of Tehuan- 

 tepec, north over the table-lands of Mexico, through western Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, 

 California, Oregon, the eastern portions of Washington, to southern British Columbia (east 

 of the Cascade Mountains only) and southern Alberta; east, regularly to the eastern slopes 

 of the Rocky Mountains, through Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and western Assiniboia in 

 the Dominion of Canada, and sporadically to Kansas, Nebraska, North and South Dakota; 

 west, in Washington, ouly to the Cascade Mountains; south, in northern Lower California, 

 in the San Pedro Martir Mountains, to about latitude 31°. 



The Red-shafted Flicker, in which the under surface of the quills and tail 

 feathers are deep orange vermilion, instead of yellow as in the preceding spe- 

 cies, replaces the latter throughout the western United States and along the 



