90 ZOOLOGY. 



MELANERPES FORMICIVORUS. 



Woodpecker. 



This beautiful bird, the rival and representative of the red-headed woodpecker, (M. erythroce- 

 phalus,) is an inseparable element of the scenery in the Sacramento valley. 



While we were encamping under the wide-spreading oaks of that region I had a very good 

 opportunity to study their habits, as they would come into the trees in the shade of which I was 

 lying. They are not shy, and frequently came round in considerable numbers. Their manners 

 are the very counterpart of those of the eastern "red-head," and their rattling cry is not 

 unlike his. Like the "red-head," I have seen two or three of them amuse themselves by 

 playing hide and seek around some trunk or branch, and, like the "red-head," too, they 

 delight to sit on the end of a dry limb and fly off in circles for the insects which come near 

 them. This bird is called " carpentero" by the Mexican and Spanish Californians, and is well 

 known by the residents as the bird which pierces the bark of oaks and pines with holes, in 

 which he inserts acorns, thus storing them up for future use. The holes are nicely adjusted to 

 the size of the acorn, which, when driven in by the energetic blows of the " carpentero," can 

 with difficulty be extracted. 



The bark of the western yellow pine (P. brachyptera, Eng.) is particularly thick and cork- 

 like, and is divided into plates of from four to eight inches in breadth, with smooth surfaces. 

 Into these plates the carpentero sometimes inserts acorns in such numbers that all the trunk of 

 the tree has the appearance of being thickly studded with wooden pegs. 



The squirrels find these stores of acorns extremely convenient, and they become the occasion 

 of unending battles between the carpentero and themselves. 



The range of the species extends to the Columbia, and perhaps above, to the westward of 

 the Cascade range, though more common in California than in Oregon. In the Des Chutes 

 basin we did not see it, and in the Cascade mountains it is replaced by M. torquatus and 

 M. albolarvatus. 



MELANERPES TORQUATUS. 



Lewis' Woodpecker. 



This elegant and interesting bird, so unlike in the region it occupies, and in its retiring 

 habits, the preceding species, seems to choose, as its favorite haunts, the evergreen forests 

 which partially cover and conceal the ragged and rocky declivities of the Cascade and Rocky 

 mountains. 



I saw it first near Lassen's Butte in northern California, flying high in the air, when its 

 flapping wings and its seemingly jet black color, led me to think it a crow diminished in size 

 by distance. Soon, however, its flight brought it towards the sun, and by the reflected light, 

 I saw that its color was of a deep and resplendent green, and recognized the bird. Subsequently 

 we noticed them in the mountains all the way to the Columbia. Though often seen at a low 

 elevation, it is evidently alpine in its preferences, for we found them most abundantly near the 

 line of perpetual snow, and when crossing the mountain passes at the snow line have seen them 

 flying far above us. While in the Cascade mountains, in September, I, one day, saw twenty 

 or more, the greater part of them young birds, contending, half in sport and half in earnest, 

 with a flock of robins (T. miyratoms) for the possession of a clump of mountain ash, now 



