The Cactus Woodpecker 
Incubation lasts twelve days, and the young are hatched some time 
in May. 
Mr. Bowles asserts that when a tree containing eggs is rapped, the 
sitting bird will try, sometimes successfully, to deceive the inquirer by 
coming to the entrance and dropping out a mouthful of chippings, thus 
conveying the impression that she is still building. It’s a shame to give 
it away. 
No. 192 
Cactus Woodpecker 
A. 0. U. No. 396. Dryobates scalaris cactophilus Oberholser. 
Synonym. —Formerly called Baird’s Woodpecker. 
Description. — Adult male: Extreme forehead and nasal tufts snuff-brown, 
shading into sooty brown of forehead, thence through black of crown, narrowly tipped 
with scarlet-red and broadly subtipped with white, to nearly pure scarlet-red of sides 
of occiput and nape, the fore-crown thus speckled with red and white in varying pro¬ 
portions; cervix (narrowly), upper tail-coverts, and tail from above, black; back and 
wings sooty brown or brownish dusky, heavily and equally barred or spotted with 
white, the spotting of wings involving flight-feathers arranged in rows, equivalent 
to bars when in repose; sides of head and neck, including superciliaries and remaining 
underparts, pale buffy brown fading to white on sides and crissum; included area on 
sides of head black, invaded by malar streaks of buffy brown or whitish; the sides of 
breast sharply and heavily spotted with brownish black; the sides, flanks, and crissum 
indistinctly barred with dusky; the under (outer) feathers of the folded tail equal- 
barred black-and-white. Bill and feet dusky horn-color; iris brown. Adult female: 
Like male, but without red on crown or nape, glossy black instead, shading to sooty 
brown on forehead; forehead sometimes sparingly speckled with white. Young male: 
Like adult male, but nape and sides of occiput black, the red carried forward and pre¬ 
vailing on crown; plumage softer and pattern slightly blended. Young female: Like 
young male, but red of crown somewhat reduced. Length of adult male: 158.75-184.2 
(6.25-7.25); wing 104 (4.09); tail 60.8 (2.39); bill 22.7 (.89); tarsus 18.1 (.71). Females 
average slightly less. 
Remarks. — Dryobates scalaris is a vigorous and considerably differentiated stock 
prevalent in Mexico (including Lower California) and Central America. Fifteen sub¬ 
species are recognized by Ridgway, of which two reach the United States, cactophilus 
widely, and symplectus more narrowly, through central Texas to southeastern Colorado. 
D. s. cactophilus may be regarded as a younger brother of D. nuttalli, more recently 
arrived from Mexico, and already crowding upon and interpenetrating the range of 
the older bird. Hybrids between the two forms are suspected. 
Recognition Marks. —Sparrow size; black-and-white barred upperparts dis¬ 
tinctive from all save D. nuttalli , from which it requires careful discrimination: cac- 
997 
