The Yellow-shafted Flicker 



tance from the water-hole when my guest arrived. The water was none 

 of the purest, quite green, in fact; but the children of the desert are not 

 fastidious. The Woodpecker arrived ostentatiously, like a belated con- 

 stable. He first bowed obnoxiously a dozen times or more, from a neigh- 

 boring brush pile, then he hitched up where he could observe the small 

 fry at their potations. A Cooper Tanager was sipping a modest beaker, 

 and gazing, Narcissus-like, at a vision of wondrous beauty, which I, good 

 sooth, was enjoying in double measure. The dainty Ground Doves, after 

 a little amorous prancing, had thrust their nozzles deep into the pool and 

 were drinking like tired horses. But now the Gila Woodpecker had come. 

 He tittered consciously, and acknowledged his thirst by covetous glances. 

 Then he sought a branch which descended sharply into deep water, and 

 down this he advanced cautiously, by tittering hitches. Down and down 

 the dread descent he went, until at last his tail, his handsome, black-and- 

 white-barred tail, was partially submerged. Then the bird tilted forward 

 and selected one drop of water. This was allowed to trickle down his 

 throat with every appearance of satisfaction, the while his tail went souse 

 again into the water. Then another drop was selected, and another, until 

 by and by he had established a regular pump-motion between bill and 

 tail: dip, souse; dip, souse; dip, souse — and all the while he clung sidewise 

 to a perpendicular twig. Dum vivimus vivamus! 



No. 203 



Yellow-shafted Flicker 



A. O. U. No. 412a. Colaptes auratus borealis Ridgway. 



Synonyms. — Flicker. Boreal Flicker (Ridgway). Northern Yellow- 

 shafted Flicker (name now restricted to C. a. luteus). Northern Flicker. Golden- 

 winged Woodpecker. Yellow-hammer. High-hole. High-holder. Pigeon 

 Woodpecker. Wake-up. 



Description. — Adult male: Top of head and cervix ashy gray, with a vinaceous 

 tinge on forehead; a bright scarlet band on back of neck; back, scapulars, and wings 

 vinaceous gray, with conspicuous black bars, brace-shaped, crescentic, or various; 

 primaries plain dusky on exposed webs; lining of wings and shafts of wing-quills yellow 

 (lemon-chrome to primuline yellow); rump white; upper tail-coverts white, black- 

 barred in broad "herring-bone" pattern; tail double-pointed, black, and with black 

 shafts on exposed upper surface; feathers sharply acuminate; tail below, golden-yellow 

 and with yellow shafts, save on black tips; chin, sides of head, and throat vinaceous, 

 enclosing two broad black malar stripes, or moustaches; a broad black pectoral crescent; 

 remaining underparts white with heavy vinaceous shading on breast and sides, every- 



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