1922] Swarth: Birds and Mammals of the Stikine Region 217 



Dryobates villosus monticola Anthony. Roeky Mountain Hairy 



Woodpecker 



The only species of woodpecker that was at all common in the 

 region. About Telegraph Creek there were but few of the birds seen 

 in May and in early June, but by the middle of June, when the young 

 were beginning to fly, hairy woodpeckers were encountered rather fre- 

 quently. Farther down the river they were decidedly scarce. A few 

 were seen at Doch-da-on Creek. At Flood Glacier, one bird was taken 

 and one other was heard calling. 



Two occupied nests were found near Telegraph Creek. One, dis- 

 covered June 11, contained nearly full-grown young, which could be 

 seen at the entrance calling for food. This nest was in a partly dead 

 poplar, about twenty feet from the ground. The second, found in an 

 exactly similar situation on June 12, contained one young bird, which 

 left at the first disturbance. 



By the third week in June the nesting season seemed to be entirely 

 over, and the young were flying about independently of their parents. 

 An adult male shot June 19 was beginning to molt. New remiges 

 have appeared at the junction of primaries and secondaries, and there 

 are new feathers along the center line of the breast and abdomen. 



Hairy woodpeckers may be expected to occur continuously along 

 the Stikine River, thus bringing the subspecies monticola and sithetisis 

 together. Unfortunately the birds are so rare along the lower river 

 (as in the southeastern Alaskan coast region in general) that it is 

 difficult to get enough specimens to ascertain the nature of conditions 

 where the two meet. We failed to see any at all at the crucial point. 



Sitkensis, in its relatively light ventral coloration, is intermediate 

 between the extremely dark harrisi and the white-breasted monticola. 

 The dark breasted type of coloration reaches its extreme development 

 in picoideus of the Queen Charlotte Islands, interposed between the 

 ranges of harrisi and sitkensis. Thus, while specimens of sitkensis as 

 laid out in trays may be arranged to illustrate a step between harrisi 

 and monticola, the geographical distribution of the several forms is 

 not in accordance with this idea. The geographical chains appear to 

 lie as follows: Starting with the white-breasted races of the interior 

 of the northwest, septentrionalis and monticola, there is an extension 

 westward on the coast of a slightly darker breasted race, sitkensis. 

 Starting again with the dark breasted type, harrisi, of the Puget 

 Sound region, and going northward, we reach the extremely dark 



