Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds 
and thickly spotted with black. Wing linings, shafts of 
wing, and tail-quills bright yellow. Above tail white, con- 
spicuous when the bird flies. 
Range — United States, east of Rockies; Alaska and British Amer- 
ica, south of Hudson Bay. Occasional on Pacific slope. 
Migrations — Most commonly seen from April to October. Usu- 
ally resident. 
If we were to follow the list of thirty-six aliases by which 
this largest and commonest of our woodpeckers is known 
throughout its wide range, we should find all its peculiarities of 
color, flight, noises, and habits indicated in its popular names. 
It cannot but attract attention wherever seen, with its beauti- 
ful plumage, conspicuously yellow if its outstretched wings are 
looked at from below, conspicuously brown and white if seen 
upon the ground. At a distance it suggests the meadowlark. 
Both birds wear black, crescent breast decorations, and the flicker 
also has the habit of feeding upon the ground, especially in 
autumn, a characteristic not shared by its relations. 
Early in the spring this bird of many names and many voices 
makes itself known by a long, strong, sonorous call, a sort of 
proclamation that differs from its song proper, which Audubon 
calls “ a prolonged jovial laugh ” (described by Mrs. Wright as 
" Wick, wick, wick, wick!”), and differs also from its rapidly 
repeated, mellow, and most musical cub, cub, cub, cub, cub, 
uttered during the nesting season. 
Its nasal kee-yer, vigorously called out in the autumn, is less 
characteristic, however, than the sound it makes while associat- 
ing with its fellows on the feeding ground — a sound that Mr. 
Frank M. Chapman says can be closely imitated by the swishing 
of a willow wand. 
A very ardent and ridiculous-looking lover is this bird, as, 
with tail stiffly spread, he sidles up to his desired mate and bows 
and bobs before her, then retreats and advances, bowing and 
bobbing again, very often with a rival lover beside him (whom 
he generously tolerates) trying to outdo him in grace and general 
attractiveness. Not the least of the bird’s qualities that must 
commend themselves to the bride is his unfailing good nature, 
genial alike in the home and in the field. 
The “ high-holders” have the peculiar and silly habit of bor- 
ing out a number of superfluous holes for nests high up in the 
131 
