CONSPICUOUSLY BLACK AND WHITE 369 



can be heard in all directions. It seems to feed entirely 

 on such wood worms as attack spruce, pine, and other 

 soft-wood timber that has been fire-killed. It never 

 attacks a healthy tree, and is far more beneficial than 

 harmful. . . . Like the hairy woodpecker, they are per- 

 sistent drummers, rattling away for minutes at a time on 

 some dead limb, and are especially active during the 

 mating season in April. I have located more than one 

 specimen by following the sound when it was half a 

 mile away. . . . May 10 I found a male busily at work 

 on a pine stump only two and a half feet high and 

 eighteen inches in diameter, standing within a few feet 

 of the road, and close to a charcoal-burner's camp. On 

 May 25 the cavity was found to be eighteen inches deep 

 and was gradually enlarged toward the bottom. The 

 four eggs it contained had been incubated four days. 

 The female was on the nest, and uttered a hissing sound 

 as she left it, and might easily have been caught, as she 

 remained in the hole until the stump was struck with 

 a hatchet." ^ 



Incubation lasts two weeks, and the young remain in 

 the nest four to five weeks according to early or late 

 hatching. They are fed by regurgitation for the first 

 nine days and possibly longer, but adults have been seen 

 carrying insects to the nest on the fifteenth day. When 

 alighting with food the adult gives a low cooing call and 

 is answered by a hissing clatter from the young that can 

 be heard at some distance from the nest tree. 



Where this bird occurs in California the local orni- 



'■ Bendire. 

 24 



