230 BULLETIN 174, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Pood. — Keferring to the food of Lewis's woodpecker, Major Bendire 



(1895) writes: 



In summer its food consists mainly of insects of different liinds, sucli as grass- 

 hoppers, large black crickets, ants, beetles, flies, larvae of different kinds, as well 

 as of berries, like wild strawberries and raspberries, service berries and salmon 

 berries, acorns, pine seeds, and juniper berries, while in cultivated districts 

 cherries and other small fruits enter into its daily bill of fare. Here, when 

 common, it may occasionally do some little damage in the orchards, but this is 

 fully compensated by the noxious insects it destroys at the same time. In locali- 

 ties where grasshoppers are abundant they live on these pests almost exclusively 

 while they last. Mr. Shelly W. Denton tells me he noticed this Woodpecker 

 gathering numbers of May flies (Ephemera) and sticking them in crevices 

 of pines, generally in trees in which it nested, evidently putting them away 

 for future use, as they lasted but a few days. It is an expert flycatcher, and 

 has an extremely keen vision, sallying forth frequently after some small insect 

 when this is perhaps fully 100 feet from its perch. 



On this latter subject, Mr. Kathbiin writes to me : 



Lewis's woodpecker is an expert at catching insects on the wing. When in this 

 act, its perch is some vantage spot, such as the top of a dead tree or a bare limb 

 in the open. Here it sits motionless, except to turn its head from side to side on 

 the lookout for its prey ; and when this is seen, the bird glides from its resting 

 place to make a capture. On one occasion for more than an hour, we watched a 

 pair of these woodpeckers seize flying insects, and in that length of time not less 

 than 35 were taken. Through our field glasses we kept" a close watch on the 

 birds and soon learned from their actions when an insect was sighted, thus it 

 was easy for us to anticipate its capture, and in not a single instance was a 

 failure made by either of the birds. Once, a light puff of air changed the course 

 of the insect just at the time it was about to be taken, but the woodpecker made 

 a quick turn upward at the same time, dropped its legs straight down, and 

 neatly made the take. When busy catching insects on the wing, this bird leaves 

 its perch by easy wing beats or a long, slow, graceful glide ; then, after its prey 

 is caught, rises in its flight and, quickly wheeling, returns to its lookout station. 



But, as if not content with hunting insects after the manner of a flycatcher, 

 sometimes this bird mingles with the swallows as they hawk over the ground. 

 On one occasion in summer, as we came to a very open pasture, we noticed 

 numbers of barn and cliff swallows in flight over it after insects, and in com- 

 pany with them was a pair of Lewis's woodpeckers. Back and forth over the 

 meadow flew these dark birds, busy in an attempt to catch flying insects, and 

 their actions as they flew were in marked contrast to those of the graceful 

 swallows. Although we watched the woodpeckers for more than half an hour, 

 throughout that time neither one alighted; and when we left the place both 

 still coursed busily above the field. 



About one-third of the food of Lewis's woodpecker consists of 

 acorns. It shares with the California woodpecker the interesting 

 habit of storing acorns, though its method of storing them is quite 

 different, for it seldom, if ever, m.akes the neat round holes to fit 

 the acorns, so characteristic of the other species; and its stores of 

 acorns are never so extensive, so systematic, or so conspicuous as 



