The Red-breasted Sapsackers 
with a tendency toward white flecking on throat. Young birds are somewhat like 
adults above, but dingy blackish on head and breast and sides, with the anterior por¬ 
tion of head and the breast suffused with dull red; also traces of fine barring on breast. 
Length a little less than in preceding; wing 123 (4.85); tail 75 (2.95); bill 24 (.945); 
tarsus 20.5 (.81). 
Recognition Marks. —Towhee size; rich carmine of head, shoulders, and fore¬ 
breast distinctive; yellow underparts, lighter and duller than nolkensis. 
Nesting. — Nest: An unlined cavity in live or dead fir, or living deciduous tree, 
preferably aspen, at any height. Eggs: 5 to 7; white. Av. size 23.4 x 17.6 (.92 x .69). 
Season: May-June; one brood. 
Range of Sphyrapicus ruber. —The Pacific Coast region broadly; breeding from 
Alaska to southern California and east to the eastern slopes of the Sierra-Cascades; 
wintering south to Cape San Lucas. 
Range of A. r. ruber. —The Californias; breeding in the Transition zone of the 
Trinity Mountains and the inner northern coast ranges, Mt. Shasta, the Warner 
Mountains, sparingly, and south along both slopes of the Sierras to the San Bernardino 
and San Jacinto Mountains; wintering extensively in the San Diegan district and 
throughout Lower California; less commonly in the valleys and foothills west of the 
Sierras. 
Authorities.—Vigors ( Pious ruber), Zool. Voy. “Blossom,” 1839, p. 23 (Mon¬ 
terey); Anderson and Grinnell, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1903, p. 8 (Siskiyou Mts.; 
crit.); Swarth, Univ. Calif. Pub. Zool., vol. x., 1912, p. 34 (habits, hist., nomencl., crit.). 
IN THE PRECEDING sketch we followed the promptings of our 
heart and made apology for this naughty little beauty who has been play¬ 
ing hob with our trees. But we foresee that in this account we shall have 
to review the evidence and invite such lenient judgment as becomes a 
jury of Californian millionaires (present and prospective). The Red¬ 
breasted Sapsucker does puncture trees and drink sap both in summer and 
in winter. In summer it attacks in this fashion not only pine, fir, aspen, 
alder, cottonwood and willow trees, but such orchard trees, as apple, pear, 
prune and the like, as may lie within Transition areas. In winter at 
lower levels it gives attention to evergreen trees, white birch, mountain 
ash, peach, plum, apricot, English walnut, elder, and pepper trees. That 
sounds portentous, and it would be if the birds were as indiscriminate 
and wasteful in their methods as are jack rabbits and pocket gophers, 
for example. But the Sapsuckers are curiously restrained by habit. 
Instead of gleaning at random, as we might expect, the Sapsucker 
makes careful selection, like a prudent forester, of a single tree, and 
confines his attentions henceforth, even though it be through succeeding 
seasons, to that one tree. Starting well toward the top of an ever¬ 
green, or well up on the major branches of an orchard tree, the bird works 
successively downward in perpendicular rows, whose borings are some¬ 
times confluent. In this way the bird secures an ever-fresh flow of sap, 
from below. If carried on too extensively, or persisted in for successive 
1013 
