KINGFISHER (Ceryle alcyon) 
Length, about 13 inches. Not to be confused 
with any other American bird. 
Range: Breeds from northwestern Alaska 
and central Canada south to the southern bor- 
der of the United States; winters from British 
Columbia, Nebraska, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, 
and Virginia south to the West Indies, Colom- 
bia, and Guiana. 
The cry of the kingfisher, which suggests a 
watchman’s rattle in vigorous hands, can be 
mistaken for the note of no other bird; nor, 
for that matter, is the bird himself likely to be 
confused with any other species. Whether fly- 
ing, perched on a branch over a stream, or 
diving for small fish, our kingfisher is always 
himself, borrowing none of his peculiarities 
from his neighbors. Many of his tropical 
brothers catch insects for a living; but our 
bird, early in the history of the development 
of the kingfisher family, discovered that fish 
were easier to catch and in the long run more 
filling than insects, and hence renounced the 
family habit and assumed the role of fisher- 
man. Instead of using 2 hollow tree as a nest 
site, the kingfisher has apparently learned a 
lesson from the sandswallows and excavates a 
burrow for himself in some sandbank, usually 
not far from pond or stream; and you may be 
sure that any pond chosen by him for a haunt 
is well stocked with fish. 
RED-HEAD (Melanerpes erythro- 
cephalus) 
Length, about 934 inches. Our only wood- 
pecker with red head and broad white wing 
patch. 
Range: From southern Canada to the Gulf 
Coast and from central Montana, central Colo- 
rado, and central Texas to the Hudson and 
Delaware. Generally resident, but more or less 
migratory in the southern parts of its range. 
This strikingly marked and readily identified 
woodpecker is common in some localities and 
entirely wanting in others, which apparently 
are equally well adapted to the bird’s needs. 
Its habits are a combination of woodpecker, 
jay, and flycatcher, and catching insects on the 
wing is a common habit. Though in general 
migratory, the bird is apparently indifferent to 
cold and other weather conditions, and winters 
wherever food abounds, especially where beech- 
nuts, of which it is very fond, are plentiful. 
The red-head eats nearly twice as much vege- 
table food as it does animal, but the latter in- 
cludes many destructive insects. For instance, 
it is greatly to its credit that it eats both 
species of clover beetles, the corn weevil, 
cherry scale, and 17-year cicada. On the other 
hand, vigorous accusations are not wanting 
from various parts of the country of damage 
done by this species. It eats corn on the ear, 
and attacks many kinds of small fruits, includ- 
ing strawberries and apples. It is also guilty 
of robbing the nests of wild birds of both eggs 
and nestlings. It does some damage to tele- 
graph poles by boring into them to make nests. 
No doubt some of these charges are well 
founded. ‘For the most part they represent the 
occasional acts of individuals, or are local and 
not characteristic of the species as a whole. 
RED-SHAFTED FLICKER (Colaptes 
cafer collaris) 
Length, 12 to 14 inches. To be distinguished 
from its eastern relative (C. auratus) by its 
red mustache and nuchal band and the red 
wing and tail shafts. 
Range: Rocky Mountain region from British 
Columbia south to Mexico, west to the coast 
mountains in Oregon and Washington, and 
through California; largely resident. 
Few birds are more widely known than the 
flicker, as appears from the fact, recorded by 
Chapman, that in the various parts of the 
country it appears under no fewer than 124 
aliases. Though well known, the flicker is 
more often heard than seen, its loud call often 
proclaiming its presence when it is hidden 
among the trees. As a rule the flicker is shy, 
and in some sections of the country it has good 
reason to be, since it is accounted a game bird 
and, as such, pursued for the table. 
Though a woodpecker, the red-shaft departs 
widely from typical members of the tribe both 
in structure and habits. Notwithstanding the 
fact that its bill is not well adapted for boring 
into wood for larve, the bird manages to do 
considerable damage in the West by making 
holes, in church steeples, school-houses, and 
other buildings, to serve as roosting quarters. 
As it is nowise particular as to its domicile, it 
is possible materially to increase its numbers 
by putting up nesting boxes for its accommo- 
dation. The bird’s subsistence is obtained 
largely from the ground, where it secures vast 
quantities of ants, for taking which its tongue 
is specially adapted; about one-half its food, 
in fact, consists of these creatures. 
CALIFORNIA WOODPECKER 
(Melanerpes formicivorus and races) 
Length, about 9% inches. Easily distin- 
guished from its fellows by its general black 
color, white forehead, throat patch, belly and 
wing patch, 
Range: Breeds from northwestern Oregon, 
California, Arizona, and New Mexico south 
through Lower California to Costa Rica. 
The California woodpecker is a noisy, frolic- 
some bird and by all odds the most interesting 
of our woodpeckers. Its range seems to be de- 
termined by that of the oaks upon which it 
lives and from which it draws a large part of 
its subsistence. In California the bird is known 
to many by the Spanish name, carpintero, or 
carpenter, and its shop is the oak, in the dead 
limbs of which, as in the bark of pines, it 
bores innumerable holes, each just large enough 
to receive an acorn. That the birds do not re- 
gard the filling of these storehouses as work, 
but, on the contrary, take great pleasure in it, 
is evident from their joyous outcries and from 
the manner they chase each other in their trips 
from tree to tree like boys at tag. In Cali- 
fornia many of the country school-houses are 
unoccupied during the summer and the wood- 
peckers do serious damage by drilling holes in 
the window casings and elsewhere with a view 
to using them as storage places. As long as 
the acorn crop lasts, so long does the storing 
work go on. Meanwhile the jays and squirrels 
slip in and rob the woodpecker’s larder. 
