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LEWIS' WOODPECKER. 



i-PlCUS TORQUATUS, Wils. 



PLATE CCLXXII.— Male and Female. 



Here you have figures of the male and female of a beautiful and singularly 

 marked species of Woodpecker, discovered in the course of the memorable 

 journey of Clarke and Lewis to the Pacific Ocean, and of which the first 

 figure, being that of an immature male, was presented by Wilson. All that 

 is at present known of its habits is contained in the following notes addressed 

 to me by Thomas Nuttall, Esq. and Mr. Townsend. "About the middle 

 of July," says the former of these travellers, "we first met with this fine 

 species in our progress westward, in the central chain of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains, in the cedar and pine woods of Bear river, pn the edge of Upper 

 California. They were already feeding their young, and inhabited the 

 decayed trunks of the pine trees. Afterwards, at the close of August, in the 

 plains sixty miles up the Wahlamet, flocks of from twelve to twenty 

 together were to be seen shifting backwards and forwards in trees near the 

 woods of the river, playing about like so many sportive Crows, which the 

 young so much resemble in colour. Now and then they would alight to 

 feed, but remained perfectly silent; they were very shy, the whole flock 

 starting at any near approach. Whether they have any note or call at other 

 seasons I am unable to say. At this time one would scarcely have suspected 

 them of being Woodpeckers, for they perched in dense flocks almost like 

 Starlings, and did not climb the branches, or tap in the least, but merely 

 watched and darted after insects, or devoured berries like Thrushes. We 

 seldom saw this remarkable species in the dense forests of the Columbia, or 

 in any settled part of California." 



Mr. Townsend says, "We first found them on Bear river, and afterwards 

 on the Columbia, where they arrive about the first of May. They are at 

 first silent, but after incubation commences, they become very noisy and 

 remarkably pugnacious, beating away all other birds from the vicinity of 

 their nests. They frequently perch cross ways upon the smaller branches of 

 trees, as well as against their trunks, climb with the usual ease and activity 

 of other species, and are in the frequent habit of darting out from the tree 

 on which they had stationed themselves, and after having performed a 

 circular gyration in the air, returning immediately to the branch from which 



