The Mearns Gilded Flicker 



IT IS — it is — the Gilded Flicker! He takes flight from a palo 

 verde, and we get a flash of authentic gold as he lights against the side 

 of a giant cactus (as though it were not at all beset with spines, that 

 should be fearful). He shouts, Culloo' cullitoo' , with jovial pretense of 

 fear, and bows emphatically with disarming waggishness. It is our old 

 friend, the Flicker, surely none other, known from seaboard to seaboard, 

 and from New Orleans to — one had almost said "the Pole." Yes; but 

 his voice is a little thinner; and the shafts of his quills with the accom- 

 panying illumination of the webs, are golden, instead of grenadine (red). 

 For the rest it is our Flicker, and, save as influenced in habit by special 

 conditions, the self-same bird which blessed our childhood. 



The distribution of the Gilded Flicker is almost exactly coincident 

 with that of the sahuaro, or "giant cactus." There is only one con- 

 spicuous stand of this plant left in California, that occurring just above 

 the Laguna Dam on the Colorado River. But wherever the presence 

 of the suhuaro affords an excuse for the bird, the latter is apt to occupy 

 neighboring timber as well, whether mesquite, Cottonwood, or willow. 

 It is for this reason that the present flicker population of the Colorado 

 River "bottoms" somewhat exceeds the accommodations provided by 

 the modest remnant of "desert candelabra." 



The hospitality of the giant cactus on its native desert is almost 

 unbounded. Its fleshy columns, flanked by fluted arms no less hos- 

 pitable, shelter not only woodpeckers and owls, but wrens, martins, 

 flycatchers, hawks, doves, and ravens. The gracefully upturned branch- 

 es, though themselves a dead weight upon the parent stem, will support 

 a man's weight beside, and there is always room for a hawk's nest at 

 their clustering bases. The succulent flesh of the sahuaro is guarded 

 externally by a series of bristling spines, and it is supported internally 

 by a concentric row of woody ribs, which gather strength as the plant 

 rears itself to an impressive height, 25, 30, or even 40 feet. An isolated 

 plant of good size is sure to contain several nesting holes, and a veteran 

 is riddled with them, each the scene of some domestic venture present 

 or past, and most of them cherishing a lively expectation of repeated 

 occupancy. The sahuaro, moreover, furnishes not only lodging, but a 

 very substantial "board," in the shape of luscious fruits borne in pro- 

 fusion upon the growing crown, or upon the ends of the branches. Its 

 body, however, is not largely subject to decay, and the proportion of 

 moribund giants is a small one. When one of them does finally dis- 

 integrate, it is a pathetic sight to see in its last stages the weathered 

 outlines of the ancient nesting hollows, each like a quaint gourd, per- 

 sisting after the supporting tissues have perished. It was the Flicker, 

 no doubt, who discovered, or perfected, this curative hardening process 



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