BIRDS or PENNSYLVANIA. 137 



and blossom end. These holes, always round, varied greatly in size. 

 The birds usually, I think, pick off the skin from a space about the 

 size of an ordinary five cent piece, and then eat out the pulp. In an 

 orchard at Hawkinsville, near Deland Landing, on the St. John's river, 

 I oftentimes, in the month of April, 1SS5, found oranges which had 

 been evidently overlooked when the crop was gathered, and in most 

 nces observed that they w f ere bored. In this orchard, on oneoc- 

 :i, I saw a Red-bellied Woodpecker eating an orange. He evi- 

 dently recognized the fact that it was about the last of the season, as 

 he had enlarged the opening sufficiently that his head was almost en- 

 tirely hidden in the yellow skin, from the sides of which he picked the 

 remaining particles of pulp. I was shown orange trees that these 

 " Sap-suckers " were said to have bored, these borings, however, did 

 not appear to in jure the trees, as they seemed to me to be equally as 

 flourishing as other trees whose trunks showed no marks of a wood- 

 pecker's bill. 



GENUS COLAPTES. SWAINSON. 

 412. Colaptes auratus (LrNN.). 



Flicker. 



DESCRIPTION. (Plate gg.) 



Bill differs from other of our woodpeckers. It is long, slender, slightly curved, 

 without lateral ridges; nostrils exposed. Shafts and under surfaces of wing and 

 tail feathers gamboge yellow ; a black patch on each side of the cheek ; a red cres- 

 cent on the upper part of hind-neck, throat and stripe beneath the eye pale lilac 

 brown. A creseentic patch on the breast and rounded spots on the belly black ; back 

 and wing coverts with interrupted transverse bands of black; neck above and on 

 sides ashy. In the female the black check patch is usually absent 



Length, about 12^ inches ; extent about 20 ; wing about 6 inches. 



Hub. Northern and eastern North America, west to the eastern slope of the Rocky 

 mountains and Alaska, Occasional on the Pacific slope from California northward. 

 Accidental in Europe, 



This species, the most common of all our Woodpeckers, is found in 

 Pennsylvania during all months of the 3^ear, but is far more numerous 

 in the summer season than at other times. The Flicker, like all of the 

 Woodpeckers, flies in an undulatory manner. When flying it is easily 

 recognized from other species by its conspicuous golden-yellow under 

 parts of the tail and wings and white rump. As previously remarked, 

 W T oodpeckers are not commonly seen on the ground ; in this particu 

 lar, however, the subject of this present sketch differs from other of 

 his kin, as he is frequently to be observed hopping about in grass fields, 

 meadows or along the roadside searching for food. Although the 

 Flicker commonly lays about six eggs, I have known as many as seven- 

 teen eggs to have been taken from the nest of one bird. Flickers are 

 great destroyers of ants: they also subsist on various forms of noxious 



