RED-HEADED WOODPECKER. 21 
Merriam has given much testimony under this head.! He states that 
in northern New York, where it is one of the commonest woodpeckers, 
it subsists almost exclusively on beechnuts during the fall and winter, 
even picking the green nuts before they are ripe and while the trees 
are still covered with leaves. He has shown that these woodpeckers 
invariably remain throughout the winter after good nut yields and 
migrate whenever the nut crop fails. He says: “ Gray Squirrels, Red- 
headed Woodpeckers, and beechnuts were numerous during the winters 
SSS FS SS 
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Fic. 3.—Red-headed Woodpecker. 
of 1871-72, 1873-74, 1875-76, 1877-78, 1879-80, 1881-82, 1883-84, while. 
during the alternate years the squirrels and nuts were scarce and the 
woodpeckers altogether absent;” and adds that in Lewis County, 
N. ¥., ‘a good squirrel year is synonymous with a good year for 
Melanerpes, and vice versa.” In early spring, following nut years, when 
the melting snow uncovers the ground, they feed on the beechnuts that 
were buried during winter. On April 5, 1878, at Locust Grove, N. Y., 
he shot 6 whose gizzards contained beechnuts and nothing else. 
1 Birds of Connecticut, 1877, p. 66; Bull. Nuttall Ornith. Club, Vol. ITI, 1878, p. 124; 
Mammals of the Adirondacks, 1884, p. 226. 
