History of 
Flicker 1 s 
vendible was broadly tipped with ivory white. This lo £ed 
so exactly like the hardened, spear*.!ike process which 
enables young birds of any(?) species to chip their way out 
of the shell and which they often wear on their bills for 
oevs ral days after hatching that It was not until I had taken 
several of these flickers from the est and passing my finger 
along the bird found its surface absolutely smooth that I 
became convinced that it was ierely a color marking and not 
an excrescence. 
, •• Another fa ture equally conspicuous and common to 
all 
them/was a gland-like swelling or process on each aide of 
the lower mandible at its base. This process was of about 
the size of the half of a small pea and wan whitish In color. 
'.11 five birds had rt this time conspicuous,black or blockish 
mustaches, paler, however, in tJ?d> t||§j| with the other three. 
On June 23rd, when these young Flickers were naked and blind, 
they made a low but penetx; ting hissing sound whenever I 
shook the stump or rattled the b- rk o . the outside. This 
experiment, repeated to-day (July 1) at once elicited an 
(be) 
outburst of hungry cries so loud as to/distinctly audible 
30 yards away from the tree and, in their combined ©z general 
effect on the ear, strongly suggesting if not also resembling 
the clatter of a mowing machine (1 afterwards made the direct 
comparison when a mowing machine was working ..near the tree 
and found the two sounds sttikingly alike). This clamor 
once fairly started would be kept up for a minute or more 
and wou b then die away gradually. 
