348 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



Great Slave lake, but resorting in the greatest numbers to the plains 

 of the Saskatchewan. Instead of hiding itself in the depths of the 

 forest it frequents the open downs, and employs itself in turning over 

 the ant-hills in search of larvae on which it preys. (Richardson.) North 

 to Peel river, mouth of the Mackenzie ; common. (Ross.) This bird is 

 by no means scarce in the valley of the Anderson but we made no 

 attempt to collect its eggs as they are not scarce. (Macfarlane.) 

 This handsome woodpecker breeds from one side of the territory 

 (Alaska) to the other wherever wooded country occurs, according 

 to the Esquimos it extends even to Behring strait. (Nelson.) 

 This species does not occur in the Yukon districts to my knowledge. 

 A specimen was obtained from Fort Yukon, where it is not abundant. 

 (Turner.) In the Yukon valley this is by far the most common 

 woodpecker. We found it quite frequently from Log Cabin to 

 Circle City. At Caribou Crossing, June 27th, 1899, Osgood secured 

 a female and found her nest containing eight young and three eggs 

 in a cavity three feet from the ground in a partly dead poplar. At 

 Six-mile river another nest was found, and at Lower Lebarge another, 

 all in the Yukon district. (Bishop.) 



Breeding Notes. — In this region (Carberry) the flicker seems to 

 prey principally on ants, taking them sometimes from the rotten 

 stumps that are honeycombed with their galleries, but more often, 

 I believe, from the mound-like ant-hills which are to be seen on the 

 prairie in such numbers. His method of attack seems to be by first 

 pecking a hole in the centre of the hill, and then as the ants come 

 swarming out he despatches them till his appetite is satisfied. After- 

 wards he comes again and again to the hill till it is completely depo- 

 pulated. (E.T.Seton.) I found a nest of this woodpecker, June 8th, 

 1882, at Bedford, Que., in the trunk of an old beech tree, containing 

 two youngUngs, five eggs incubated and one egg quite fresh; also 

 another nest in the decayed trunk of a beech tree in the woods below 

 Hochelaga, June 3rd, 1883, containing four eggs, and in the same tree 

 two eggs; May 21st, 1887, another nest, with one egg, in a hole in 

 the dead Umb of a tree on the spur of Mount Royal. The flicker's 

 nest can often be discovered by the quantity of chips strewn over 

 the ground under the tree, from the hole they have been excavating 

 in it. (Wintle.) One of these birds has nested in a telegraph post 

 in front of my house at Kew Beach, Toronto for the past five sum- 

 mers and has never yet succeeded in hatching its eggs on account 



