154 
THE CONDOR 
Vol. XVII 
pecker, as with the California Woodpecker, for they live in a claw-to-beak 
fashion. They peck at a kernel until it comes off the cob, when it is carried 
to a post or tree and placed firmly in a crack. Here it is pecked to pieces and 
eaten. They seem never to swallow the kernel whole but always break it up. 
They seem to be allotted on the ratio of a pair of birds to a home, and it is but 
rarely that more than two are seen at the same corncrib. During the breeding 
season they are shyer and are not seen around the homes very much ; but when 
the young are grown they “bring them out” and present them as it were. 
The food of this woodpecker is varied, nearly everything being grist that 
comes to his mill. He pecks around decayed and dying trees as well as green 
ones, and presumably get the insects usually found and eaten by such birds. 
The giant cactus is pecked into very frequently, and I believe some of the pulp 
is eaten. The small punctures made are not enlarged, and in some cases quite 
an area is bitten into. The fruit of the giant cactus is eaten as long as it lasts, 
and berries of the Lycium are also freely eaten. The Gila Woodpecker fre- 
quents corn fields, and pecks through the husks into the ears of corn. The 
Fig. 54. Adult Gila Woodpecker at work ok T-bone Steak. 
birds may peck in at first to get a worm, but it is a case similar to the dis- 
covery of roast pig as portrayed by Lamb. They alight on the ground and 
feed upon table scraps thrown to chickens, three of them being regular morn- 
ing visitors, star boarders, to a pen of chickens I fed. They are very fond of 
peaches and pears, and volubly resent being driven from a tree of the fruit. 
They peck holes in ripening pomegranates and then the green fruit beetle 
helps finish the fruit. They relish grapes, both white and colored, and will 
spear one with their bill and carry it to a convenient crevice where it may be 
eaten at leisure. On bird-tables I have tried them with various articles of food 
and found very little that they rejected. They would not eat cantaloupe at all 
but were regular watermelon fiends, eating it three times a day and calling 
for more. They did not care for oranges, and I had no success in trying to 
teach them to eat ripe pickled olives. I tried the olive diet on them because 
two Mocking-birds in our yard in California learned to eat this fruit. Meat, 
raw and cooked, was eaten, and they ate suet greedily. Their favorite cut of 
beef was the T-bone steak and we always left some meat on the bone for them. 
