LEWIS'S WOODPECKER 227 



jay, with none of the undulations common to so many woodpeckers. 

 I made the same comment the second time I saw it, and am interested 

 to see that the same impressions were made on many others. 



It is essentially a bird of the more open country and among scat' 

 tered large trees, rather than of the heavily forested regions. S. F, 

 Rathbun writes to me of its haunts in western Washington: "In 

 this section of the State are many tracts of land commonly known 

 as 'old burns.' At one time all were forested, then later they were 

 swept by fire and in some instances more than once ; but even now, on 

 many, still stand the scarred and blackened trunks of what formerly 

 were large, tall trees; and it is in or about these unattractive places 

 that this woodpecker is more apt to be found, although by no means 

 is it restricted to them." 



Major Bendire (1895) says: "I have rarely seen Lewis's wood- 

 pecker in deep forests; far more frequently just on the outskirts 

 of the pines, in juniper groves on the table-lands bordering the 

 pines, as well as in the deciduous timber along streams in the low- 

 lands, and occasionally even in solitary cotton woods or willows, near 

 some little spring, in the drier sagebrush-covered flats, miles away 

 from the nearest forest." 



Winton and Donald Weydemeyer (1928) say that in northwestern 

 Montana it is — 



a common summer resident throughout most of the Transition zone. It occurs 

 most regularly in mixed broadleaf and conifer woods in river valleys, and in 

 open forests of yellow pine along the foothills. It rarely ranges into the 

 higher mountains, although we observed one individual in a Canadian zone 

 forest of lodgepole pine and alpine fir, at an altitude of 6,160 feet. In cut-over 

 or burned woods, it ranges to a higher elevation than in virgin forests. 



In the eastern part of the county, this woodpecker is most common ai"ound 

 farms and slashings, and in the more open woods of fir, larch, and yellow 

 pine. Near Libby, in the western part, it seems to prefer creek-bottom woods 

 of aspen, spruce, and cottonwood. 



Johnson A. Neff (1928) says that his "acquaintance with this 

 exotically brilliant woodpecker began in the mountains of Colorado, 

 and even now the thought of it calls to mind that bleak, wind-blown 

 area at an elevation of 8,500 feet, where these birds were very much 

 at home in the dead trunks of spruce and hemlock that had once 

 covered the mountains with living verdure." 



Nesting. — Mr. Rathbun says in his notes: "In western Washing- 

 ton this woodpecker nests in June. Almost invariably the excavation 

 for its nesting place is in a dead tree, the trunk of which is more 

 or less blackened by fire, and this may be one reason why the bird 

 is partial to the old burns. The tree may be one of several scattered 

 about, or, infrequently, somewhat isolated. But in any event, this 

 w^oodpecker shows a liking for a good-sized tree, broken off at quite 

 a height, the outside of which has been charred or blackened by 



