Birds of Allegany Park 297 



The voice of the Sapsucker is not often heard. The commonest 

 note is a cat-like " waaow," that reminds me of a similar call of 

 the gray squirrel. 



The nest is in a hole in a tree, usually rather high up. While 

 generally beneficial as an insect destroyer, this bird is sometimes 

 harmful, girdling or seriously injuring trees by its habit of drilling 

 rows of holes through the inner bark to get the sap. 



Northern Pileated Woodpecker. Phloeotomus pileatus abie- 

 ticola (Bangs) 



This W r oodpecker is unmistakable. Its large size, only slightly 

 smaller than the Crow, its black back, red-crested head, white stripe 

 en the side of head and neck, and white-marked wings are entirely 

 characteristic. The females have less red on the head. 



That this Woodpecker occurs occasionally, particularly in the 

 more mature forests of the Park, is unquestioned. Several persons 

 reported seeing it recently in the Park area, but I did not see one 

 myself. Unmistakable signs of its work on the trunks of large dead 

 trees were seen in the Big Basin, at the head of Red House Creek 

 and in Browns Hollow, a tributary of Wolf Run. In the last case 

 the work was fresh. 



The call of this bird suggests in time and form the long call of 

 the Flickers. It is louder and of different quality, however, sounding 

 like " ho ho ho ho ho ho " many times repeated. The flight is usually 

 undulatory like that of the other woodpeckers, although the con- 

 trary has been stated. 



The nesting hole is similar to that of the other woodpeckers but 

 with a larger opening. Places where these woodpeckers have been 

 at work on tree trunks show deep rectangular holes chiseled into the 

 wood, often running up and down the trunk for a foot or more. 



Brown Creeper. Certhia familiaris americana (Bonap.) 



In the summer of 1922 the Brown Creeper was added to the 

 list of the summer birds of the Park. A single bird was seen on 

 August 21 in the Big Basin on Stoddard Creek. This species may 

 be easily distinguished from others by its small size, slender 

 curved bill, finely striped brown back, pointed tail feathers, and 

 habit of creeping spirally up the trunks of trees as far as the 

 rough bark extends. It never creeps head downward as do the 

 Nuthatch and Black and White Creeper. Its commonest note is 

 a faint, high-pitched " shree-e-e-e," and in early summer it rarely 

 sings a short, weak song of only four or five notes, suggesting 

 the songs of the weaker voiced warblers. 



2. Birds of the Tree-tops. Many birds live amid the foliage and 

 twigs of the tree-tops (plate 28 and figure 86). Here they nest and 

 search for their food, which in the majority of cases is insects. 

 Most of these insects are caterpillars, leaf beetles or aphids, all 

 injurious to forests. 



The great amount of good these birds do is not often fully appre- 

 ciated. A single experience in the Park will suffice to illustrate 



