THE BIRD STUDY BOOK 



pole. Some years ago a pair excavated a nest and 

 reared their young in a wooden ball on the staff of the 

 dome of the State House in Raleigh, North Carolina. 



On the plains, where trees are few, the telegraph 

 poles provide convenient nesting sites for Wood- 

 peckers of various species. While travelling on a 

 slow train through Texas I counted one hundred and 

 fifty telegraph poles in succession, thirty-nine of 

 which contained Woodpeckers' holes. Probably 1 

 did not see all of them, for not over two-thirds of 

 the surface of each pole was visible from the car 

 window. Not all of these holes, of course, were occu- 

 pied by Woodpeckers in any one season. 



Flickers, or " Yellowhammers," use dead trees 

 as a rule, but sometimes make use of a living 

 tree by digging the nest out of the dead wood where 

 a knot hole offers a convenient opening. The only 

 place I have ever known them regularly to nest in 

 living trees is in the deserts of Arizona, where the 

 saguaro or "tree cactus" is about the only tree large 

 enough to be employed for such a purpose. In the 

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