28 BIRDS OF CALIFORNIA AFFECTING FRUIT INDUSTRY. 



they seldom suffer much damage by them. However, though ants 

 do not destroy fruit or other crops to any great extent, they aid 

 and abet other insects which do considerable harm. This is partic- 

 ularly true in regard to plant lice, which are housed, protected, and 

 generally cared for by ants. Ants also continue the destructive work 

 in timber begun by beetle larvae until the wood is rendered worthless. 

 The other insects eaten by the flicker are all more or less harmful, 

 except a few useful ground beetles (Carabidse) . Most of the vegeta- 

 ble food is neutral; the amount of fruit and grain destroyed is not 

 sufficient to constitute serious injury, but the scattering broadcast 

 of the seeds of poison oak is harmful. As on the whole the flicker 

 does more good than harm, it should be protected and encouraged. 



OTHER WOODPECKERS. 



Several other species of woodpeckers inhabit the State of California 

 but, excepting the Lewis woodpecker, they are neither so numerous 

 nor so generally distributed as those already treated. Their food 

 consists in the main of the same elements, although the proportions 

 vary with the species. The Lewis woodpecker (Asyndesmus lewisi) 

 is perhaps the most important of these species, but since only 23 of 

 its stomachs are available for examination, a definite statement of 

 its food during the year can not yet be made. It appears to eat 

 rather more vegetable than animal food, and in fall and winter eats 

 large quantities of acorns. In the selection of its animal food it 

 resembles the flicker in showing a decided taste for ants and other 

 Hymenoptera. 



Dr. C. Hart Merriam contributes the following note on this species: 



The Lewis woodpecker is one of the commonest and most widely distributed wood- 

 peckers of California, in these respects coming next after the California woodpecker 

 ( Melanerpesformicivorus bairdi) . But owing to its habit of breeding at higher altitudes 

 it is less often seen in the lower and more highly cultivated parts of the State, except 

 during migration. It breeds mainly in the Ponderosa pine forests of the mountains 

 (Transition zone), whence, usually in early September, it descends into the blue oak 

 and Digger pine belt of the foothills to spend the winter. 



Like the California woodpecker, it is a skillful flycatcher, pursuing and capturing 

 insects in mid-air. But in fall and winter its principal food is acorns, of which it eats 

 surprising quantities. At this season is is usually seen in small flocks of from 6 to 20 

 birds, each carrying a large acorn in its bill. 



These woodpeckers are very fond of ripening apples, and in early September descend 

 in flocks upon the orchards, particularly those of the higher foothills, and in certain 

 cases, if let alone, destroy practically all the fruit. I have heard of their depredations 

 in various parts of the State and have personally seen the birds, in early September, 

 circling about the orchards and diving down into the apple trees between Round 

 Mountain and Montgomery Creek, and in Fall River Valley, Shasta County, and in 

 Scott Valley and the upper canyon of Klamath River near Beswick, in Siskiyou 

 County. At the latter place they are so destructive that during the ripening of the 

 fruit gunners employed to shoot them frequently kill 25 in a day, and in early Sep- 

 tember, 1907, I was told that as many as 50 had been killed in one day. 



