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RED CONSPICUOUS IN PLUMAGE 465 
This species is said never to girdle the trees as does 
the Eastern variety, and to be far less harmful. 
408. LEWIS WOODPECKER. — Melanerpes torquatus. 
Famity: The Woodpeckers. 
Length: 10.50-11.50. 
Adults: Upper parts, lower tail-coverts and thighs uniform dark me- 
tallic greenish ; face dark crimson; chest and collar round back of 
neck grayish ; under parts, sides, and flanks pinkish red, with plu- 
mage coarse and hair-like. 
Young : Like adults, but without red on head and without collar ; under 
parts more grayish than pinkish. 
Geographical Distribution: Western United States, from the Black Hills 
and Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. 
California Breeding Range: Along the Sierra Nevada south to Fort 
Tejon; also in the valleys of the Salinas and the San Benito. 
Breeding Season: May and June. 
Nest : Excavations made mostly in pines and dead stumps, from 8 to 100 
feet from the ground. 
Eggs: 5 to 9; white. Size 1.03 X 0.80. 
Tue Lewis Woodpecker, although so handsome, is the 
most silent and stupid of all its race. Making no at- 
tempt to defend its nest, it will sit on a limb of the tree 
and look on while its home is rifled, uttering no sound 
and seeming not to care. It uses the same excavation 
year after year, and will sometimes lay a second set of 
eggs in the same hole from which the last has just been 
stolen. The nest is usually high in a tree, and is some- 
times thirty inches deep with an entrance two and a half 
inches in diameter. In summer this Woodpecker is resi- 
dent in certain localities along the Sierra Nevada south 
to Fort Tejon, and breeds in the open country along this 
range. In the winter it may be found nearly throughout 
the State. 
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