Birds of Oregon and Washifigton 165 



ern part of our continent, bearing as it does the 

 name of the distinguished explorer, Lewis, of 

 the Lewis and Clarke Expedition. It is also 

 greatly distinguished for its altogether unique 

 color. No other Woodpecker is both greenish- 

 black and crimson. Dr. Elliott Coues says : 

 " No other species of our country shows such a 

 metallic iridescence, or such intense crimson, 

 and in none is the plumage so curiously modified 

 into a bristly character." 



The bird looks as dark as a Blackbird, on the 

 wing. Its flight is more like that of birds be- 

 longing to other than the Woodpecker family, 

 being direct and even, not undulating. It also, 

 like ordinary birds, alights upon boughs. It 

 taps on tree-trunks infrequently. In the forest 

 it lives, feeds and nests high up on the dead top 

 of some tree, or in the more open oak wood. 

 In Oregon, it is more often found in deciduous 

 trees. One of its peculiarities is that it has the 

 habit of the Flycatcher family, in often flying 

 from the tree-top to catch, on the wing, some 

 approaching insect. 



This bird, formerly altogether of the deep 

 woods, is, like other birds, changing his habits 



