As it grew dusk, the young gradually grew quieter, and their little “peep-peep-peep” greatly resembled those of chicks when crawling beneath their mother’s wings. From two o’clock in the afternoon till seven o’clock that evening, two minutes was the longest period during which the young did not utter a single “peep.” From seven P. M. until two minutes after four the next morning, the young birds ceased this continuous chattering. The mother was the last to feed them at night, the time being seventeen minutes after seven; but the male was up first in the morning. At four-fifteen in the morning, the young uttered a few sleepy “peeps,” and the male alighted three feet below the hole at four-sixteen. The young birds heard him alight and immediately commenced to chatter. The male hopped up to the hole, looked in twice, and then fed them. The young birds’ bills were seen, indicating that they were very hungry, and were hanging on to the inner wall of the nest near the entrance. Soon after this their hunger was appeased, their bills were seen no more, and the parents had to go almost into the hole to feed them. _Plumages._--The nestlings are naked and blind at first, but the juvenal plumage is acquired before the young leave the nest. In the juvenal plumage, the young male is similar to the adult male, but the yellow crown patch is smaller and not so sharply defined; the upper parts are duller, browner black, lacking the glossy, bluish edgings; the breast is tinged with dull buffy white; and the flanks are more heavily and less distinctly barred or spotted with dull black. The young female is similar to the young male, but there is no distinct yellow patch on the crown, only scattering yellow feathers in varying amounts, often few or none at all. This plumage is worn through the summer and early fall; the first winter plumage, which is practically indistinguishable from that of the adult, is apparently not fully acquired until November or December. Adults have one complete annual molt, beginning in August. _Food._--More than three-quarters of the food of both species of three-toed woodpeckers consists of the larvae of wood-boring beetles, mainly Cerambycidae and Buprestidae. Referring to the former, Prof. F. E. L. Beal (1911) says: Stomachs containing 15 to 20 of these grubs are very common, and one held 34. Probably the stomach is filled several times each day, and it does not seem unreasonable to assume that a bird will eat 50 of these insects every 24 hours for 6 months and at least 25 daily for the other half of the year. At this rate one bird will annually destroy 13,675 of these destructive grubs. * * *