WILLIAMSON'S SAPSUCKER. 101 



and tlie conclusion arrived at: 'Well, we shall have to try again, with the hope 

 of better luck next time.' " 



Nidification is similar to that of the other species of the genus, with the 

 exception already mentioned, of the difference in the kind of trees preferred. 

 The height of nesting sites A'aries considerably, say from 5 to 60 feet, and per- 

 haps still more in exceptional cases. Fresh eggs may be looked for, according 

 to altitude, from May 20 to June 15; on May 26, 18)S7, Mr. Gale took a fine 

 set of six, which I judge to have been perfectly fresh, from the exquisite manner 

 in which they are prepared. 



I obtained my first set of eggs of this species on June 3, 1883, about 9 

 miles north of Fort Klamath, in the open pine forest on the road to Crater Lake. 

 It consisted of five eggs, slightly incubated. The nesting site was excavated 

 in a partly decayed pine whose entire top for some 20 feet was dead; the height 

 of the excavation from the ground was about 50 feet. The man climbing the 

 tree reported it to be about 8 inches deep and about 5 inches wide at the bottom, 

 and freshly made. A second set, of six fresh eggs, was taken June 12 of the 

 same year, about 12 miles north of the Post, at a still higher altitude than the 

 first one. It came also out of a pine about 40 feet from the ground. A third 

 nest, found a week later, near the same place, contained five young, just hatched. 

 This nest was in a dead aspen, about 20 feet from the ground. Only one brood 

 is raised, and, like the two other species, it is only a summer resident, in the 

 vicinity of Fort Klamath. Its food seems to consist almost exclusively of insects 

 and their larvae, various species of lepidoptera, and an occasional grasshopper. 

 Berries, I think, are seldom eaten by them. 



I have found fully fledged young in July; a young female, shot July 21, 

 must have left the nest certainly by the beginning of the month. When the 

 young are large enough to fly, they are not at all rare at the lower altitude of 

 Fort Klamath. They show the same differences in coloration in the sexes in 

 their first plumage, with the following exceptions: The young males lack the red 

 on the throat, which is replaced by dirty white ; the sulphur yellow on the lower 

 parts is mostly wanting, a slight trace of it being noticeable on some specimens ; 

 and the black on the back is much duller. The young females differ likewise by 

 the absence of yellow on the belly, the black patch on the-breast is wanting, the 

 markings and barrings on the upper parts are less distinct, and the colors gen- 

 erally duller. In its undulating flight from tree to tree this species utters a 

 shrill note, like "huit, huit." 



Williamson's Woodpecker winters in the lower valleys and foot hill regions 

 in the southern half of California, a,nd southward in the pine forests of Arizona, 

 New Mexico, western Texas, and probably also in similar localities of northern 

 Mexico. The number of eggs laid to a set varies from three to seven, sets of 

 five or six being most often found. These, like all Woodpecker's eggs, are pure 

 china- white in color; the shell is close grained, rather thin, and only slightly 

 glossy. In shape they vary from ovate to elongate ovate, and a few approach 

 an ovate pyriform, a shape apparently not found in the eggs of the other species 

 of this genus. 



