276 BACKBONED ANIMALS. 
It is a large bird, twenty-one inches long, the general color 
black with white markings, the crest bright scarlet in the 
male, They cling upon trees, and bore and hammer out 
the grubs and insects there concealed, and are so powerful 
‘hat in a few hours they have been known to tear off thirty 
feet of bark. The nest is pecked out of the trunk of a 
live tree, generally beneath a branch, first directly in and 
then downward for two or three feet, and here the six or 
eight white eggs are deposited. Their cries are exceed- 
ingly human, and like those of a hurt child. 
Note.—The California woodpecker (Aelanerpes formicivorus) is 
remarkable for its habit of storing up acorns for winter food by boring 
a hole in a tree and driving in the acorn so tightly that no other animal 
can get it out. So frequent are these in some trees that they appear 
as if studded with nails. At Mount Pizarro, where such storehouses 
are found, the nearest oak-trees are in the Cordilleras, thirty miles dis- 
tant; thus each acorn required a 
flight of sixty miles besides the labor 
of boring the hole. 
The generic name of the 
Night Hawks (Cafrimulgi- 
da) refers to a curious super- 
stition that the birds milk 
goats and cows. ‘They are 
generally nocturnal, have 
short, triangular bills, enor- 
mous mouths (Fig. 309) for 
the capture of insects, and 
soft plumage, that explains 
their noiseless, quiet flight. 
The whip-poor-will (Cagri- 
Fic. 309.—Night hawk, feeding ”#dgus vociferus) is a familiar 
on the wing. form. The general color is 
grayish, much variegated, the 
ends of the outer tail-feathers white. In all the family 
the color is protective, their crouching positions lending 
