72 BULLETIN OF WISCONSIN NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. VOL. 2. NO. 1. 
place as follows : ''I could show you two dozen any day all winter 
long, within city limits/' and with reference to stored acorns, 
"Every tract of woods contains some of them." From Grant 
county they were reported very numerous, burying the acorns 
from one to two inches into the body of dead poplars. 
In the northern section of the state, north of the 45th parallel, 
the red-head was comparatively scarce, excepting in Polk county. 
This, too, is the only place so far north from which stored acorns 
were reported, which is not at all remarkable, because Polk county 
is fairly supplied with oak. 
From the remainder of the state we may separate the follow- 
ing three areas in which the red-headed woodpecker was abundant 
during the winter of 1899- 1900. One of these lies in the north- 
western portion, including Eau Claire, Pierce, Pepin, Clark and 
Dunn counties ; another in the southwestern corner, including 
Grant, Iowa and La Fayette covmties ; the third lies fairly within 
the central portion of the state, including, beside Dane and Dodge 
counties, those bordering on Waushara. Whether or not this 
distribution coincides Vv^th that of Quercus in our state I cannot 
say. For the detailed distribution I have appended a tabulation 
of the results of my investigation. 
Before concluding I should like to call attention to the bio- 
logical significance of the storing habit of Melanerpes. On the 
one hand it should show the powers of a migratory species to 
adapt itself to a cold and wintery climate ; on the other, the ex- 
treme importance of food over temperature as a cause for migra- 
tion. These questions, however, must be attacked from the stand- 
point of the kind of food a bird eats, together with its method of ob- 
taining it. It is just this which enables the red-head and all our 
resident birds to remain here over winter. 
