132 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 
ing them with their beaks. When the squirrel sees the prop- 
erty-owner coming, he hurries to a hole, or gets under a limb, 
where the woodpecker cannot conveniently strike him. Some- 
times Indians and even white men are glad to avail themselves 
of the woodpecker’s stores as a protection against starvation. 
The length of the bird is nine inches; the anterior part of 
the body above and the tail are black; the belly, rump, a patch 
on the forehead, and a collar on the neck, white; and the 
crown, and a short occipital crest, red. Dr. Newberry says: 
“This beautiful bird, the rival and representative of the red- 
headed woodpecker [of the Atlantic slope of the continent], is 
an inseparable element of the scenery of the Sacramento val- 
ley. While we were encamped 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 counter- 
part 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 de- 
light to sit on the end of a dry limb, and fly off in circles for 
the insects which come near them.” 
Lewis’s woodpecker is in color dark glossy green above and 
gray beneath, with dark-crimson patches on the sides of the head 
and belly. The feathers on the under part are bristle-like. It 
prefers an elevated home, and is found ten and twelve thou- 
sand feet above the sea. 
§ 101. Humming-Birds.—There are four humming-birds in 
California, all different from those found in the Atlantic states. 
The white-throated swift, a bird resembling the swallow, but 
smaller, is common in the Colorado Basin. We have a whip- 
poor-will different from the one known in the Eastern states. 
Two night-hawks are found in our state, one of them appeat- 
ing on this slope of the continent only in the vicinity of the 
Colorado, and on the other slope not extending far beyond the 
