The Mearns Gilded Flicker 
IT IS—it is—the Gilded Flicker! He takes flight from a palo 
verde, and we get a flash of authentic gold as he lights against the side 
of a giant cactus (as though it were not at all beset with spines, that 
should be fearful). He shouts, Culloo’ cidlitoo ', with jovial pretense of 
fear, and bows emphatically with disarming waggishness. It is our old 
friend, the Flicker, surely none other, known from seaboard to seaboard, 
and from New Orleans to—one had almost said “the Pole.” Yes; but 
his voice is a little thinner; and the shafts of his quills with the accom¬ 
panying illumination of the webs, are golden , instead of grenadine (red). 
For the rest it is our Flicker, and, save as influenced in habit by special 
conditions, the self-same bird which blessed our childhood. 
The distribution of the Gilded Flicker is almost exactly coincident 
with that of the sahuaro, or “giant cactus.” There is only one con¬ 
spicuous stand of this plant left in California, that occurring just above 
the Laguna Dam on the Colorado River. But wherever the presence 
of the suhuaro affords an excuse for the bird, the latter is apt to occupy 
neighboring timber as well, whether mesquite, cottonwood, or willow. 
It is for this reason that the present flicker population of the Colorado 
River “bottoms” somewhat exceeds the accommodations provided by 
the modest remnant of “desert candelabra.” 
The hospitality of the giant cactus on its native desert is almost 
unbounded. Its fleshy columns, flanked by fluted arms no less hos¬ 
pitable, shelter not only woodpeckers and owls, but wrens, martins, 
flycatchers, hawks, doves, and ravens. The gracefully upturned branch¬ 
es, t hough themselves a dead weight upon the parent-stem, will support 
a man’s weight beside, and there is always room for a hawk’s nest at 
their clustering bases. The succulent flesh of the sahuaro is guarded 
externally by a series of bristling spines, and it is supported internally 
by a concentric row of woody ribs, which gather strength as the plant 
rears itself to an impressive height, 25, 30, or even 40 feet. An isolated 
plant of good size is sure to contain several nesting holes, and a veteran 
is riddled with them, each the scene of some domestic venture present 
or past, and most of them cherishing a lively expectation of repeated 
occupancy. The sahuaro, moreover, furnishes not only lodging, but a 
very substantial “board,” in the shape of luscious fruits borne in pro¬ 
fusion upon the growing crown, or upon the ends of the branches. Its 
body, however, is not largely subject to decay, and the proportion of 
moribund giants is a small one. When one of them does finally dis¬ 
integrate, it is a pathetic sight to see in its last stages the weathered 
outlines of the ancient nesting hollows, each like a quaint gourd, per¬ 
sisting after the supporting tissues have perished. It was the Flicker, 
no doubt, who discovered, or perfected, this curative hardening process 
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