8 
the Rocky Mountains. It is there replaced by the red-shafted flicker 
(C. cafer), which extends westward to the Pacific. The two species are 
as nearly identical in food habits as their enviroument will allow. The 
flickers, while genuine woodpeckers, differ somewhat in habits from the 
rest of the family, and are frequently seen upon the ground searching 
for food. Like the downy and hairy woodpeckers, they eat wood-boring 
grubs and ants, but the number of ants eaten is much greater. Two of 
the flickers’ stomachs examined were completely filled with ants, each 
stomach containing more than 3,000 individuals. These ants belonged 
to species which live in the ground, and it is these insects for which the 
flicker is searching when running about in the grass, although some 
grasshoppers are also taken. 
Pia, 8,—Viicker. 
Thered-headed woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus) (fig. 4) is well 
known east of the Rocky Mountains, but israther rare in New England. 
Unlike some of the other species, it prefers fence posts and telegraph 
poles to trees asa foraging ground. Its food therefore naturally dif- 
fers from that of the preceding species, and consists largely of adult 
beetles and wasps, which it frequently captures on the wing, after the 
fashion of flycatchers. Grasshoppers also form an important part of 
the food. The redhead has a peculiar habit of selecting very large 
beetles, as shown by the presence of fragments of several of the largest 
species in the stomachs. Among the beetles were quite a number of 
predaccous ground beetles, and unfortunately some tiger beetles, which 
are useful insects. Theredhead has been accused of robbing the nests 
