416 LEWIS' WOODPECKER. 



In Mexico these Woodpeckers store acorns in the dry flower stalks of the maguay 

 or "century plant" {Agave americana) and also in dead trunks of arborescent yuccas. 

 The nidification does not differ from that of the Red-headed Woodpecker. 



DESCRIPTION: "Above and on anterior half of the body, glossy bluish or greenish-black; top of head and 

 short occipital crest, red. A white patch on the forehead, connecting with a broad crescentic collar 

 on the upper part of the neck by a narrow isthmus, white tinged with sulphur-yellow. Belly, rump, 

 bases of primaries, and inner edges of the outer quills, white. Tail-feathers, uniform black. Female 

 with the red confined to the occipital crest, the rest replaced by greenish-black." 



Length about 9.50 inches; wing, 6.00; tail, 3.75 inches. (B. B. & R., II, p. 566.) 



The Narrow-fronted Woodpecker, M. formicivorus angttstifrons Baird, inhabits 

 the southern portion of Lower California. 



LEWIS' WOODPECKER. 



Melanerpes torquatus Bonap. 



This is one of our most beautiful and peculiar birds, whose rich dark crimson and 

 bristle-like breast feathers distinguish it at the first glance. It inhabits the western part 

 of the country, from the Black Hills and the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific and from 

 southern British Columbia and southern Alberta south to Arizona, and (in winter) to 

 western Texas, being especially abundant along the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada 

 in California and Nevada, as well as in those of the Cascades in Oregon and Washington, 

 and on both sides of the Blue Mountains and connecting ranges in Oregon, Washington, 

 and Idaho. "I have met with Lewis' Woodpecker," says Major Chas. Bendire, "in the 

 vicinity of all the Military Posts I have been stationed at in the West, but found it 

 nowhere so abundant as along the southern slopes of the Blue Mountains, in the vicinity 

 of Catnp Harney, Oregon, during the year 1875 to 1878. Here it was only a summer 

 resident, usually arriving about the 20th of April, and in some seasons from seven to 

 ten days later. It. is by far the most silent Woodpecker I have met, and, aside from a 

 low twittering, it rarely utters a loud note. Even when suddenly alarmed, and when 

 it seeks safety in flight, the shrill huit, huit, given on such occasions by nearly all our 

 Woodpeckers is seldom uttered by it. Only when moving about in flocks, on their first 

 arrival in the spring and during the mating season, which follows shortly afterwards, 

 does it indulge in a few rattling call-notes, resembling those of the Red-shafted Flicker, 

 and it drums more or less in a lazy sort of way, on the dead top of a tall pine, or a 

 suitable limb of a Cottonwood or willow." 



It does not frequent the deep interior of the forest but rather the outskirts of the 

 pines, cedar groves on the table lands bordering the pines, as well as deciduous woods 

 on the streams and in lowlands. Its food consists mainly of all kinds of insects, such 

 as grasshoppers, large black crickets, ants, beetles, wood worms, but it also relishes all 

 kinds of small fruits, especially the berries of the juniper, and the service tree, and in 

 cultivated districts it has acquired a liking for cherries, strawberries, etc. In winter 

 acorns and seed of conifers form a considerable part of its food. 



The eggs, five to nine in number, are pure glossy-white. The cedars or "junipers 

 which are often selected for nesting sites, were invariably decayed inside, and after the 



