LEWIS'S WOODPECKER 229 



in most cases, dull, opaque white, without any gloss whatever. Some sets, how- 

 ever, are moderately glossy, but scarcely as much so as the better-known eggs 

 of the red-headed woodpecker, and none are as lustrous as the eggs of the 

 flicker. 



The measurements of 58 eggs average 26.22 by 19.99 millimeters; 

 tlie eggs showing the four extremes measure 30.48 by 21.34, 26.G7 by 

 24.38, and 23.37 by 17.27 millimeters. 



Young. — Major Bendire (1895) says of the young: 



Both sexes assist in incubation, and this lasts about two weeks. The young 

 leave the nest about three weeks after they are hatched, and are readily tamed. 

 I kept a couple for several days, but they had such enormous appetites that I 

 was glad to give them their liberty, as they kept me busy providing suitable 

 food. They were especially fond of grasshoppers, but also ate raw meat, and 

 climbed everywhere over the rough walls of my house. A considerable share 

 of the food of these birds is picked up off the ground, and they appear to be much 

 more at home there than woodpeckers generally are. The youug are fed on 

 insects, and I believe also on berries ; I have seen one of these birds alight in a 

 wild strawberry patch, pick up something, evidently a strawberry, fly to a tree 

 close by in which the nest was situated, and give it to one of the young which 

 was clinging to the side of the tree close to the nesting site. 



Plumages. — The young Lewis's woodpecker is hatched naked and 

 blind, but the juvenal plumage is acquired before the young bird 

 leaves the nest. In fresh juvenal plumage the red "face" of the adult 

 is replaced by black or dusky, though a young bird taken on July 

 22 shows some red mixed with the black in this area ; the bill is small 

 and weak; the crown and occiput are dull brownish black, without 

 any greenish luster; the silvery-gray nuchal collar of the adult is 

 wholly lacking; the under parts are mostly dull pale gray or dull 

 grayish white, more or less suffused on the central breast and ab- 

 domen with dull red or orange-red; the whole plumage is softer 

 and more blended in texture. Dr. J. A. Allen (Scott, 1886) says 

 of some young birds that he examined : "The back and upper surface 

 of the wings are bronzy green nearly as in the adult, with, however, 

 in addition, broad bars of steel-blue on the scapulars and quills. 

 These bars are especially prominent on the secondaries and inner 

 vanes of the primaries, and are seen also in some specimens on the 

 rectrices. The steel-blue edging the outer vanes of the quill feathers 

 in the adult is absent ; and the inner secondaries and longest primaries 

 are tipped more or less prominently with white." 



This juvenal plumage is worn through the siunmer and into 

 September, when the molt into the first winter plumage begins with 

 a sprinkling of the silvery, bristly feathers appearing on the breast 

 and in the collar, with the increase of red in the "face," and with 

 metallic-green feathers showing on the head. This molt is appar- 

 ently prolonged and is not finished until early in winter, when young 

 birds and adults are practically alike. Adults have a complete annual 

 molt late in summer and fall ; I have observed it as late as October 12. 



