1 62 Indian Museum Notes. [Vol. IV. 



winter diet with many birds. A number of weed seeds were found, 

 and if eaten in considerable quantities would be a great argument in 

 the bird's favour, but unfortunately they occurred in only one or two 

 stomachs each, and so may be considered as merely picked up 

 experimentally in default of something better. It is possible that a 

 series of stomachs taken in the winter months might show a larger 

 percentage, as has been observed in the case of other species cf 

 birds, including at least 2 woodpeckers. The mineral element of the 

 stomach contents is larger in the Flicker than any of the others, 

 forming 5 per cent, of the whole, and consisting principally of fine 

 sand. It was noticed that the greatest quantity was present in 

 stomachs containing ants, showing that the sand was picked up 

 accidentally in gathering the ants from their hillocks. 



RED-HEADED WOODPECKER. 



{Melanerpes eryihrocephalus.) 



The handsome Red-head inhabits suitable localities throughout 

 the United States, east of the Rocky Mountains, but is only casual 

 in New England. He is a familiar bird on telegraph poles and fence 

 posts, and seems to prefer these rather unpicturesque objects to 

 other apparently more fruitful hunting grounds. He feeds largely on 

 insects found upon these bare surfaces, but the vegetable matter in 

 his stomach shov/s that he forages in other pastures also. 



Fifty years ago Giraud stated that on Long Island the Red-headed 

 Woodpecker arrives early in April, and during the spring "subsists 

 chiefly on insects. In the summer it frequents the fruit trees, ripe 

 cherries and pears seeming to be a favorite repast. In the fall it 

 feeds on berries and acorns, the latter at this season forming a large 

 portion of its food."^ 



In its fondness for mast it resembles its relative, the California 

 Woodpecker, whose habit of storing acorns is one of its most con- 

 spicuous traits. In the northern parts of its range, where the oak is 

 replaced by the beech, the Red-head makes the beech-nut its principal 

 food. Dr. C. Hart Merriam has given much testimony under this head.* 

 He states that in Northern New York, where it is one of the com- 

 monest woodpeckers, it subsists almost exclusively on beech-nuts 

 during the fall and winter, even picking the green nuts before they 

 are ripe and while the trees are still covered with leaves. He has 

 shown that these woodpeckers invariably remain throughout the 

 winter after good nut yields and migrate whenever the nut crop fails. 



* Birds of Long Island, by J. P. Giraud, Jr. 1S44, page 180. 



3 Birds of Connecticut, 1877, page 66; Bull-Nuttall Ornith. Club, Volume III, 1878, 

 age 124; Mammals of the Adirondacks, 1884, page 226. 



