LAND BIRDS. 371 
U.S. Department of Agriculture, and reported on by Professor F. E. L. Beal, 
showed 56 percent of animal matter, 39 percent of vegetable matter and 5 
percent of sand. More than three-fourths of the animal matter consisted 
of ants, so that they formed at least 45 percent of the entire food for the year. 
In two cases the number of ants in single stomachs exceeded 3,000. Other 
conspicuous insects found in the stomachs were large ground _ beetles, 
mainly carabids, and others presumably beneficial. On the whole the 
insect food of the Flicker does it little credit and its vegetable food does 
not help the record much. It eats corn in the milk, and at least twenty 
varieties of fruits, mostly wild. However, it eats cultivated cherries and 
grapes, as well as candleberries or wax-myrtle berries (Myrica cerifera) 
and berries of the poison ivy and poison sumac. On the whole its food 
shows it to be of little economic account one way or another. 
It nests commonly in May, selecting the decayed trunk of a tree and 
excavating a hole from one to three feet in depth and usually at no great 
height from the ground, most often from ten to thirty feet. It lays from 
six to ten eggs, the usual number being seven or eight, but if all but one 
or two be removed the Flicker has been known to continue laying until 
fifty or more have been deposited. Apparently but one brood is reared 
in a season, but, as with other birds, a second laying is made if the first 
comes to grief. 
It has a great variety of notes, some of which are indicated with more or 
less exactness by the common names listed above. Eugene Bicknell says: 
“Tts long rolling call is usually given from some high perch, and has a free 
far-reaching quality that gives it the effect of a signal thrown out over 
the barren country as if to arouse sleeping nature. This call continues 
irregularly through the summer, but then loses much of its prominence 
amid the multitude of bird songs. It is not infrequent in September, but 
later than the middle of October I have not heard it. Another vocal 
acquirement of the High-hole is a sound much like that caused by the 
whetting of a scythe. It is hardly necessary to allude to the familiar 
call-cry of the species, which may well have conferred the name Clape 
which this bird bears in certain sections. In the breeding season the High- 
hole seems to be quieter than either before or after, perhaps from con- 
siderations of caution” (Auk, Vol. II, pp. 259-260). Captain Bendire 
gives the following description of some of its notes: ‘‘One of their com- 
monest calls at this season of the year [spring] is a clear whick-ah, whick-ah; 
another sounds like quif-u, quif-u, a number of times repeated; tchuck-up 
tchuck-up, is another familiar sound uttered by them; a far-reaching 
clape, clape, is also frequently uttered, while a quickly given rolling or 
rattling three-he-he-he-he and a low cack-cack-cack seems to be notes of 
endearment. Another call, when courting its mate, sounds like outt-ouit 
and ends with a soft puir, puir, or a cooing yu-cah, yu-cah. Low chuckling 
sounds are also frequently uttered during their love-making; another 
common call note sounds like zee-ah, zee-ah and during the summer a elear 
pi-ack, pi-ack, or pioh, is also frequently heard; in fact, no other of our 
woodpeckers utters such a variety of sounds.” 
TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION. 
Adult male: Top of head clear bluish-gray; occiput with a bright scarlet crescent; 
back ulars and wing-coverts brown, sharply barred with clear black; rump white, 
epee upper tall-coveris white, barred or marbled with black; sides "of face above 
