_Behavior._--Charles A. Allen, of Nicasio, Calif., wrote to Major Bendire (1895): “These Woodpeckers are very fond of hanging to telegraph poles, and may be found drumming along the line of the Central Pacific Railroad through the Sierra Nevadas, where you can hear them beating a tattoo for hours at a time. If you try to approach one, as soon as a certain distance is reached the bird will sidle to the opposite side of the pole, and then keep peeping around the corner at whatever has excited his suspicions, and as soon as it thinks it has a good opportunity to escape it will fly away with a shrill cry, and keep the pole in line between it and yourself for protection. Here they are very shy, and remain very quiet if discovered.” According to Bendire’s own experience-- “These birds are not at all shy during the breeding season, allowing you to approach them closely; but they have an extraordinarily keen sense of hearing. I frequently tried to sneak up to a tree close to my house which I knew had been selected by a pair of these birds, to watch them at work, but I was invariably detected by the bird, no matter how carefully I tried to creep up, before I was able to get within 30 yards, even when she was at work on the inside of the cavity and could not possibly see me. The bird would cease working at once, her head would pop out of the hole for an instant, and the surroundings would be surveyed carefully. If I kept out of sight and perfectly still, she would probably begin working again a few minutes afterward, but if I moved ever so little, without even making the least noise, in my own estimation, she would notice it and stop working again at once. If the tree were approached too closely, she would fly off, uttering at the same time a note resembling the word ‘jay,’ or ‘chäe,’ several times repeated, which would invariably bring the male around also, who had in the meantime kept himself busy in some other tree, either drumming or hunting for food. While the female was at work on the inside of the excavation the male would fly to the entrance, from time to time, and look in; * * * and at other times he would hang, for five or ten minutes even, just below the entrance to the burrow, in a dreamy sort of study, perfectly motionless and seemingly dazed.” Mr. Neff (1928) writes: