254 BULLETIN 174, UNITED STATES NATIONAI^ MUSEUM 



Mr. Gilman (1915) writes: 



The food of tliis woodpecker is varied, nearly everything being grist that 

 comes to his mill. He pecks around decayed and dying trees as well as green 

 ones, and presumably get the insects usually found and eaten by such birds. 

 The giant cactus is pecked into very frequently, and I believe some of the pulp 

 is eaten. The small punctures made are not enlarged, and in some cases quite 

 an area is bitten into. The fruit of the giant cactus is eaten as long as it 

 lasts, and the berries of the Lycium are also freely eaten. The Gila wood- 

 pecker frequents corn fields, and pecks through the husks into the ears of corn. 

 The birds may peck in at first to get a worm, but it is a case similar to the 

 discovery of roast pig as portrayed by Lamb. They alight on the ground and 

 feed upon table scraps thrown to chickens, three of them being regular morn- 

 ing visitors, star boarders, to a pen of chickens I fed. They are very fond of 

 peaches and pears, and volubly resent being driven from a tree of the fruit. 

 They peck holes in ripening pomegranates and then the green fruit beetle helps 

 finish the fruit. They relish grapes, both white and colored, and will spear 

 one with their bill and carry it to a convenient crevice where it may be eaten 

 at leisure. On bird tables I have tried them with various articles of food 

 and found very little that they rejected. They would not eat cantaloupe at 

 all but were regular watermelon fiends, eating it three times a day and calling 

 for more. They did not care for oranges, and I had no success in trying to 

 teach them to eat ripe pickled olives. I tried the olive diet on them because 

 two Mocking-birds in our yard learned to eat this fruit. Meat, I'aw and cooked, 

 was eaten, and they ate suet greedily. Their favorite cut of beef was the 

 T-bone steak and we always left some meat on the bone for them. They 

 picked it clean, and if a new supply was slow in coming the softer parts of the 

 bone were devoured. * * * jyjj.. Frank Pinkley, custodian of the Casa 

 Grande Ruins told me of a pair of these woodpeckers that stayed around his 

 home and became quite tame, coming into the shed to drink from a can of 

 water. He said they got into the habit of sucking the eggs in the chicken 

 house, or at least pecking into them and eating of the contents. * * * 



The Indians store corn in the ear on the flat tops of their houses and 

 sheds, * * * and each home has one or more of woodpecker retainers or 

 pensioners hanging about most of the time. This corn provides an abundant and 

 sure source of food, and the birds make the most of it. I have never seen any 

 indication of food-storage on the part of the Gila woodpecker, as with the Cali- 

 fornia Woodpecker, for they live in a claw-to-beak fashion. They peck at a 

 kernel until it comes off the cob, when it is carried to a post or tree and placed 

 firmly in a crack. Here it is pecked to pieces and eaten. They seem never 

 to swallow a kernel whole but always break it up. 



W. L. Dawson (1923) says that tliis woodpecker indulges in "a sys- 

 tematic search for birds' eggs, especially those of the Lucy warbler, 

 yellow warbler, and Arizona Least Vireo. In case of the first-named, 

 the eggs are devoured in spite of the most emphatic protests of the 

 tiny parents; but eggs of Cardinal, Cooper Tanager and Towhee 

 must be obtained by stealth." 



A. H. Anderson (1934) writes: 



In the Tucson, Arizona, area a gall-insect {Pacliiipsijlla vcnusta) frequently 

 attacks the leaves of the hackberry tree (Celtis reticulata). The galls form 

 on the leaf petiole, becoming from a quarter to half an inch in diameter. During 

 the winter the outer shell hardens like a nut. 



