The Downy Woodpeckers 
Remarks. —This form is the exact analogue of the “saturated” form, D. villosus 
liarrisi, having its center of abundance in the humid coastal belt of Oregon and Wash¬ 
ington. No hard-and-fast line can be drawn between it and turati, however, whether 
north or south of San Francisco Bay. Indeed, gairdneri-turati may be regarded as a 
gradually paling strain, intrusive from the Northwest. The recognition of gairdneri 
in California illustrates a sequence rather than establishes a fact. 
Range of D. p. gairdneri. —Resident in humid Transition zone from southern 
British Columbia to Mendocino County, California. 
Authorities.—(?) Heermann ( Picas meridional is), Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv., vol. 
x., pt. iv., no. 2, 1859, p. 57 (mts. of n. Calif.); Fisher, Condor, vol. iv., 1902, p. 68 
(diag., meas., Calif, localities of capture); Anderson and Grinnell, Proc. Acad. Nat. 
Sci. Phila., 1903, p. 7 (Siskiyou Mts.; crit.). 
THE DOWNY Woodpecker is an almost perfect miniature of the 
Hairy type, even in flight and voice. The parallelism between the two 
species is, moreover, so close that it follows them in their geographical 
changes, for both are wide-spread. The Willow Woodpecker, D. p. 
turati, is, therefore, roughly the analogue of the Cabanis, D. v. hyloscopus; 
the Batchelder, D. p. leucurus, of the Modoc, D. v. orius; and especially 
the Gairdner, D. p. gairdneri, that of the Harris Woodpecker, D. v. 
liarrisi; for to the same causes must be attributed the soiling of bosoms 
once immaculate. In making further comparison, however, we find that 
the Willow Woodpecker (under which name we may most conveniently 
speak of California Downies) is much more restricted in its range than its 
larger congeners. It is nearly confined to the Upper Sonoran zone, save 
in the northern part of the State, where it invades Transition; and in 
winter it may make little excursions into the desert to hobnob with the 
Cactus Woodpecker, D. scalaris. In its normal range it is chiefly con¬ 
fined to deciduous timber, and shows a great preference for wooded bot¬ 
toms and the borders of streams. Willow trees are everywhere its most 
natural association, yet sycamores, alders, and occasionally oaks and fir 
trees afford nesting sites. Foraging expeditions are regularly undertaken 
into neighboring groves of live oak or pine, as the case may be, and visits 
are paid, wherever the cover allows, to apple orchards. 
It is as an orchardist that the Willow Woodpecker deserves the 
most careful consideration. Bird-lovers are, perhaps, prone to superla¬ 
tives in commending their friends, but it is safe to say that a more useful 
bird for his ounces than the Downy Woodpecker does not exist. He eats 
not only ants and the larvae of wood-boring beetles, but scale insects, 
plant lice, and the pupae of the detestable codling moth. The evidence 
is clear that these incomparable tree experts, together with their friends, 
the nuthatches, the chickadees, and the creepers, would insure the health 
of our orchards if they were numerous enough. It becomes of the highest 
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