350 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE. 
and ends with an abrupt precision suggestive of a mechanical contrivance 
set off with a spring. This is used in lieu of song. It is set off for the first 
time in the new year in March, usually about‘the middle, but sometimes 
earlier and again not until the end of the month or even early April. It 
is in use through the summer and autumn, often becoming infrequent 
in October, and in November still more so; although in some years not 
ceasing altogether until the end of the month. On a few occasions I have 
heard it in winter” (Auk, II, 257-258). 
TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION. 
Precisely like the common Hairy Woodpecker except for much smaller size and the 
additional fact that in the present species the outer pair of tail-feathers is always more 
or less barred with black, while in the Hairy these feathers are unspotted. The measure- 
ments are: Length 6.25 to 7 inches; wing 3.40 to 4.05; tail 2.29 to 2.90; culmen .68 to .82. 
167. Black-backed Three-toed Woodpecker. Picoides arcticus (Swains.). 
(400) 
Synonyms: Arctic Three-toed Woodpecker.—Picus (Apternus) arcticus, Swains., 
1831.—Picoides arcticus, Gray, 1845, and most recent authors. 
Plate XX XIII. 
Reference to the accompanying plate will serve to identify this bird; 
it can be known readily by its entirely black upper parts, except that the 
male has a square golden-yellow patch on the crown, the female lacking 
this mark. 
Distribution.—Northern North America from the Arctic regions south 
to the northern United States (New England, New York, Michigan, Minne- 
sota and Idaho), and in the Sierra Nevada to Lake Tahoe. 
The Black-backed Three-toed Woodpecker has been confounded fre- 
quently with its near relative the so-called American Black-backed Wood- 
pecker, better called the ‘Ladder-backed Woodpecker.” The name 
appearing in the A. O. U. Check-list for the present species is Arctic Three- 
toed Woodpecker, but this name is objectionable since, of the two Three- 
toed Woodpeckers this is the more southern in its distribution. It seems 
better therefore, to call this bird (arcticus), the Black-backed Three-toed 
Woodpecker, and the other form (which does not occur in Michigan as far 
as we know) the Ladder-backed Three-toed Woodpecker.* 
The Black-back is a fairly common species throughout the Upper 
Peninsula and the heavily wooded higher parts of the Lower Peninsula, 
but so far as we know it does not occur south of latitude 48° even in winter. 
The southernmost record so far as we know is that of three specimens 
taken, presumably at different times, near Port Huron, St. Clair county, 
by Mr. John Hazelwood. Mr. N. A. Eddy took a male February 7, 1885, 
on the Pine River, near Standish, Arenac county, and it is not uncommon, 
according to Wood and Frothingham, in Ogemaw, Roscommon and Oscoda 
counties, and has been recorded from nearly all the counties of the Lower 
Peninsula north of this, as well as from most of the Upper Peninsula, 
including Isle Royale. It is restricted mainly to heavily wooded regions, 
but opinions differ widely as to the character of timber preferred. One 
observer states that it frequents high lands and hardwood timber, another 
*¥For additional note on this species see Appendix. 
