228 BULLETIN 17 4, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



the flames. We have found many of its nesting places, and among 

 these was one we shall not forget. In this case, the tree was a Yery 

 large one, was broken off at a height of about 175 feet, and, as usual, 

 had its outer surface burnt. Not far below its top was the entrance 

 to the nest of a pair of these woodpeckers. Because it was so high 

 it could be distinctly seen only by the use of glasses, but often we 

 had noticed one of the birds enter it or come out of it. This nesting 

 place was used for a number of years, and when it was in use we 

 have gone out of our way more than once just to see these wood- 

 peckers ; for the top of the tree was used as a lookout station by the 

 pair of birds, from which at times one or both would sail into the 

 air after a flying insect." 

 Major Bendire (1895) says that — 



it is by no means as particular in the choice of a nesting site as the majority of 

 our Woodpeckers. Shortly after arriving on their breeding grounds a suitable 

 site is selected for the nest, and not infrequently the same excavation is used for 

 successive years. In most cases the nesting sites are excavated either in the 

 tops of tall pines or in dry cottonwoods, and in tall rotten tree trunks, occasionally 

 in partly decayed limbs of sycamores, oaks, and less frequently in junipers and 

 willows. The nests, as a rule, are not easily gotten at, and quite a number are 

 practically inaccessible, varying in height from 6 to fully lOO feet from the 

 ground. 



* * * [At Camp Harney, Oreg.] these birds nested mostly in junipers. 

 * * * The junipers which are selected for nesting sites were invariably de- 

 cayed inside, and after the birds had chiseled through the live wood, which was 

 usually only from 1 to 2 inches thick, the remainder of the work was compara- 

 tively easy; the same site, if not disturbed, was occupied for several seasons, 

 and in such the inner cavity was much deeper, some being fully 30 inches deep 

 and generally about 4 inches wide at the bottom. The entrance hole varies from 

 2 to 21/^ inches in diameter, and when this is made by the birds it is always 

 perfectly circular ; but occasionally a pair will take advantage of an old knot 

 hole, if it and the cavity it leads to are not too large. 



The Weydemeyers (1928) say that in northwestern Montana this 

 species exercises a wide range of selection for nesting trees; of four 

 nests that they record, two were in larch stubs, one in a dead cotton- 

 wood, and one in a live yellow pine ; these nests were in the Transition 

 Zone at elevations between 2,000 and 3,100 feet. 



Ed. S. Currier (1928) found Lewis's woodpeckers nesting in what 

 he called "colonies," near Portland, Oreg.; in each of tAvo dead cot- 

 tonwoods, less than a mile apart, he found three occupied nests all 

 on the same day. 



Eggs. — Bendire (1895) says: 



From five to nine eggs are laid to a set; those of six or seven are the most 

 common, but sets of eight are not very rare ; I have found several of that num- 

 ber, and a single set of nine. 



The eggs of Lewis's woodpecker vary greatly in shape and also in size. They 

 are mostly ovate or short ovate in shape, but an occasional set is decidedly 

 rounded ovate, while others are elliptical ovate; the shell is close grained and, 



