74 PICIDiE : WOODPECKERS. 



Like the Hairy Woodpecker, the Downy is rather 

 more frequently observed in fall and winter than in the 

 breeding season ; it is often prompted to seek safety in 

 seclusion, but with the fearlessness of innocence, and 

 that confidence in humanity which one's own clear con- 

 science so often establishes, to be so often abused, it 

 not seldom nests in the orchard and garden. With 

 almost incredible labor do the hopeful and expectant 

 pair chisel a hole for the nest, relieving and cheering 

 each other until the excavation, to them more important 

 than the exhumation of a buried Ilium, is completed to 

 their satisfaction ; when, about the middle of May, upon 

 the bare chips and mould at the bottom of the cavity, 

 the mother bird finds her crystal spheres, to the number 

 of five or six, in size about three-fourths by three-fifths 

 of an inch. 



BLACK-BACKED THREE-TOED WOOD- 

 PECKER. 



PiCOIDES ARCTICUS (Sw.) Gr. 



Chars. Only three toes ; back uniform black ; under parts white, 

 barred on sides with black ; sides of head striped with black and 

 white ; quills spotted with white ; middle tail-feathers black, 

 lateral white, none barred. Crown of male with a square yellow 

 patch. Length, 8.00-9.00 ; wing, 4.50-5.00 ; tail, 3.50-4.00. 



The whole range of ornithological science furnishes 

 scarcely another instance than the genus Picoides of the 

 reduction of the digits of a bird to three, of which only 

 two point forward, and of which the hind one is really 

 the outer toe reversed to take the place of a missing hal- 

 lux ; for in the three-toed genera of Alcedinida {Alcyone 



