BIRDS OF NORTHERN CANADA 379 



different ovates to an elongate ovate. Both sexes assist in 

 incubation, which lasts from twelve to fourteen days. Their 

 food consists principally of grubs, larvae of insects, ants, vari- 

 ous species of lepidoptera, which they catch on the wing like 

 fly-catchers, and berries." The Dominion Museum at Ottawa 

 does not own a skin or egg of this species ! 



405. PiLEATED WooDPEOKEE — GeopMcBUs pUeatus (Linn.). 



In the spring of 1889 four male birds of this woodpecker 

 were shot — ^three of them near Stuart's Lake, and the fourth 

 at Fort Babine — and the skins were later forwarded to 

 Washington. Major Bendire states that Chief Trader B. R. 

 Ross, of the Hudson's Bay Company, had taken an example 

 at Fort Liard, in the extreme north-eastern corner of British 

 Columbia, and Mr. John Reid one on Big Island, in Great 

 Slave Lake, which marks the most northern point of 

 its knowQ range. An egg is deposited daily, and incu- 

 bation begins occasionally before the set is completed, 

 and lasts about eighteen days, both sexes assisting in this 

 duty, as well as in caring for the young. Like all wood- 

 peckers, the pileated are very devoted parents, and the young 

 follow them for some weeks after leaving the nest, until fully 

 capable of caring for themselves. Only one brood is raised 

 in a season. The eggs are pure china-white in colour, mostly 

 ovate in shape ; the shell is exceedingly fine grained and very 

 glossy, as if enamelled; they are not as pointed as those of 

 the ivory-billed, and average smaller. Professor Macoun 

 has excluded this species from his Catalogue, and has instead 

 entered " C. pileatus ahieticola Bangs," 1898, the north- 

 ern sub-species adopted since Major Bendire's death a year 

 or two before. The Ottawa Museum contains nine skins 

 thereof, but no eggs ! 



412. Flickee — Colaptes auratus (Linn.). 

 On 7th June, 1885, a nest in a hole in a poplar tree was 

 found near Fort Chipewyan, which contained four fresh 

 eggs. The female parent was shot. Six days earlier an- 



