260 USEFUL BIRDS. 
While this bird often excavates a hole for a winter shelter, 
it sometimes sleeps exposed on a tree trunk. Mr. Bailey 
and I once watched one that slept for many winter nights on 
the north side of a tree trunk in a thick grove. It attached 
its claws to the bark and went to sleep in much the same 
position in which it ordinarily climbed the tree. It inva- 
riably went to the same tree at night, and was found in the 
same place at daylight each morning. 
Northern Flicker. Golden-winged Woodpecker. Pigeon Woodpecker. 
Yellow Hammer. Partridge Woodpecker. Wake-up. Gaffer Wood- 
pecker. High-hole, High-holder, etc. 
Colaptes auratus luteus. 
Length. — About twelve inches. 
Adult Male.— Brown above; a scarlet crescent across the nape of the neck; top 
and back of head gray; back and wings barred with black; rump white; 
quill feathers of wings and tail ‘black above, golden-yellow below; shafts 
of both wing and tail feathers yellow; throat pinkish-brown, running to 
buff on the breast, sides, and belly, which are marked with round black 
dots; a black crescent on breast, and a black patch on each side of head 
just below gape. 
Adult Female. — Similar, but without the black ‘‘ mustache.” 
Nest.— A hole in a tree, from four to forty feet from the ground. 
Eygs.— Glossy white. 
Season. — Resident; not very common in winter except in southeastern Massa- 
chusetts. 
The Flicker, our largest and most common Woodpecker, is 
well known, in some one or more of its various forms, over 
the greater part of temperate America. It has over thirty 
vernacular names, a few of the most common of which are 
given above. A loud wick, wick, is the Flicker’s announce- 
ment that spring has come. Its amorous wick'-er, wick'-er, 
wick!-er, sounds from the orchards in early spring, as the male 
birds play about in curious antics, each trying in friendly 
rivalry to outdo the other in the display of his golden beauty, 
that he may thus attract and hold the admiration of the 
female. There is no fighting, but in its place an exhibition 
of all the airs and graces that the rival dandies can muster. 
Their extravagant, comical gestures, rapidly changing atti- 
tudes, and exuberant cries, all seem laughable to the onlooker, 
but evidently give pleasure to the birds. Their notes on 
such oceasions have considerable variety, and are all pleasing. 
