154 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



with the destruction of the forest, is gradually depriving us of one of the 

 most interesting of our native birds. 



Melanerpes erythrocephalus. (Linnaeus) 

 Red-headed Woodpecker 



Plate 52 



Picus erythrocephalus Linnaeus. Syst. Nat. Ed. lo. 1758. i : 1 13 



DeKay. Zool. N. Y. 1844. pt 2, p. 185, fig. 34 

 Melanerpes erythrocephalus A. O. U. Check List. Ed. 3. igio. p. 192. 



No. 406 



melanerpes, Gr., [xlXa?, black, and spicil?, creeper; erythrocephalus, IpuOpoi;, red, and 

 xs^a^Yi, head 



Description. The head and neck deep red or crimson; body, wings 

 and tail blue-black and white in large areas, as the bird flies the white seeming 

 to predominate, but as it clings to the trunk of a tree the back seems mostly 

 black, but still gives the appearance of the three principal colors, red, 

 bluish black and white; bill, bluish horn color; iris, brown; feet, bluish gray; 

 sexes alike. Young: Grayish where the adults are black and red, during' 

 the first winter, the grayish of the head gradually replaced by the crimson, 

 and the grayish of the back, wings and tail by the black. 



Length 9.3-10 inches; extent 17-18; wing 5.3-5.7; tail 3.21-3.7; 

 bill 1.2. 



Distribution. The Red-headed woodpecker is found throughout the 

 greater portion of the austral region of North America. Although it was 

 formerly common in New England and eastern New York, it is now rare 

 in those districts, but still locally plentiful in western New York, as it 

 is throughout the Mississippi valley. It must be ranked primarily as 

 a summer resident in New York, but in seasons when beech mast and 

 chestnuts are abundant this species remains throughout the winter as 

 was explained in 1883 by Doctor Merriam. I have noticed the same 

 principle to obtain in western New York since the year 1878, but in 

 ordinary seasons the Redhead disappears late in October and is not seen 

 again until the ist to the loth of May when he arrives from the southern 

 states whither he had withdrawn to pass the winter. Even in central 

 and western New York this bird is not so uniformly distributed as is the 



