378 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
at least to Fort Sumner (Gaut) and to Roswell (Hollister), descending thus below 
4,000 feet, and it is found equally low in the valleys of the Rio Grande and the 
Gila. [Noted September 30, near Gallup, and October 1 and 2, 1916, at White- 
water Creek (Skinner). 1 
It is not rare in winter in the State; Guadalupe Mountains south of Queen, 
abundant December 31, 1915 (Ligon); noted at Albuquerque, December 25, 1902 
(Harman); and even to the northern part, as at Shiprock (Gilman); Espanola 
(Loring); Las Vegas (Batchclder); Union Couftty, November 5, 1915 (Ligon); 
near Clapham, a pair was seen December 7; and at Perico, December 18, 1893, 
another pair was noted (Seton). In the region of the Carlsbad Bird Reserve it 
was common from the lower country to the summits of the Guadalupe Mountains 
January, 1915, and noted in the winter of 1915-16. [It was fairly common in 
December, 1916. On the Rio Grande Bird Reserve (Elephant Butte), it was com¬ 
mon November 23-December 9, 1916 (Willett).]—W. W. Cooke. 
Nest. —From 2 to 70 feet from the ground in rotten stubs or trees; also in holes 
in banks, in sides of houses, and gate and fence posts. Eggs: 5 to 10, white. 
Food. —In 183 stomachs examined the food consisted of 67.74 per cent of 
animal matter and 32.26 of vegetable. Ants aggregate 53.82 per cent of the total 
food. Larvae of the codling moth, the greatest apple pest (McAtee, 1912, p. 564), 
bugs, spiders, white ants, caterpillars; and from October to February, crickets, 
grasshoppers, locusts, and an occasional alfalfa weevil make up the rest of the 
animal food. Of the vegetable matter 10.28 per cent was fruit taken mainly in 
late fall or winter; grain amounted to 2.26 per cent, and was partly waste grain in 
winter. Seeds amounted to 19.59 per cent, largely seeds of poison oaks. “The 
farmer and horticulturist have little to fear from the Red-shafted Flicker. In its 
animal diet it does very little harm, and it consumes no more of the products of 
husbandry than it is entitled to. Its greatest fault is distributing seeds of the 
poisonous Rhuses” (Beal, 1911, p. 62). “In destroying ants it is working for the 
best interests of man, as many large harvest ants ... do considerable damage 
to grain and forage, not only by cutting down the crop for a space of several feet 
about their domicile, but by building nests which menace the operation of the 
mower or reaper” (Kalmbach, 1914, p. 9). 
General Habits. —Hybrids of the eastern or Yellow-shafted Flicker 
and the western Red-shafted have been well known from the intersection 
of their ranges at the western border of the plains and northwestward 
through British Columbia, but apparently had never been recorded 
from New Mexico until a male was taken, on March 6, 1928, by Maj. 
Allan Brooks and Mr. Kellogg, three miles north of Silver City, some 
distance from its normal western limit in central Texas. As Mr. Kellogg 
writes, "It was in company with several typical Red-shafted birds. It 
had the red nuchal crescent, yellow wings and tail, and red moustaches 
underlaid with black” (MS). 
In the flickers, as in the sapsuckers, we find a marked departure from 
the strict woodpecker type, showing adaptation of form and coloration 
to habit. The bill, instead of being chisel-shaped and bevelled, is slender 
and comparatively weak. In the flickers, the tongue instead of being a 
heavily barbed spear for extracting woodborers is a probe so long that 
it can probe deep into ant hills, while the large salivary glands supply 
