_Food._--The cactus woodpecker lives mainly on the larvae of wood-boring beetles, which it gleans from the trunks and branches of trees. It also eats the larvae of the coddling moth and other Lepidoptera, ants, caterpillars, and cotton worms. It usually forages at low elevations on small trees, shrubs, and various cacti and is often seen feeding on the ground. Major Bendire (1895) says that this woodpecker, “like several other species, is very fond of the ripe figlike fruit of the giant cactus, and I have met it more than once in Sahuarito Pass, Arizona, eating it on the ground.” _Voice._--Ralph Hoffmann (1927) compares the notes of the cactus woodpecker with those of the downy woodpecker and says that “the common notes are a single high-pitched _tschik_ or a longer rattling call with a slight fall toward the end. It often calls as it flies, and like other woodpeckers drums in spring on dry limbs.” Dawson (1923) refers to the notes as “his _plink, plink_, and his long rolling chirrup.” _Field marks._--A small woodpecker with the upper parts distinctly and extensively barred with black and white is either one of the races of _Dryobates scalaris_, commonly called ladderbacks, or _Dryobates nuttalli_. These two species are very much alike in superficial appearance and might be easily confused; but fortunately their ranges do not overlap, except to a slight extent in some of the mountain passes of southeastern California. Mr. Dawson (1923) says that the cactus woodpecker “is browner above, more strikingly, heavily, and numerously barred, with less of black on sides of head, and red (of adult male) pervading crown as well as nape.” _Winter._--W. E. D. Scott (1886) says that these woodpeckers “are at times gregarious. I particularly noticed this in December, 1885, when I frequently met the species in flocks of from four to a dozen, on the plains at an altitude of 3,000 feet.” DRYOBATES SCALARIS EREMICUS Oberholser SAN FERNANDO WOODPECKER HABITS This race of ladder-backed woodpeckers occupies the northern half of Baja California, north of the range of _Dryobates scalaris lucasanus_, with which it intergrades about midway the peninsular. It is described by Dr. H. C. Oberholser (1911b) as “similar to _Dryobates scalaris lucasanus_, but larger; lower surface darker; upper parts darker, the white bars on back averaging narrower and less regular, the black bars wider; black bars on posterior lower parts averaging somewhat wider.”