July, 1915 
WOODPECKERS OF THE ARIZONA LOWLANDS 
155 
They picked it clean, and if a new supply was slow in coining the softer parts 
of the bone were devoured. This T-bone steak diet, however, was prior to 
the balloon ascension of beef. The bone was always nailed fast to the table 
and it furnished the birds with food and exercise, and us with edification. Mr. 
Frank Pinkley, custodian at the Casa Grande Ruins told me of a pair of these 
woodpeckers that stayed around his home and became quite tame, coming into 
the shed to drink from a can of water. He said they got into the habit of 
sucking the eggs in the chicken house, or at least pecking into them and eating 
of the contents. As the eggs were from blooded Wyandot hens he had to break 
the woodpeckers of the habit. I did not ask him how he did it, but fear that it 
was in the same way that he broke some Horned Owls of dining on the same 
brand of hens. Water seems to be the least of their worries; perhaps it is sup- 
plied by the giant cactus they peck into so freely. 
This woodpecker has not the best disposition in the world, for he is very 
quarrelsome and intolerant. He fights his own kin and all the neighbors that 
Fig. 55. Young Gila Woodpeckers clinging to 
SIDE OF SAGUARO. 
lie dares. He, or she, is a great bluffer however and when “called”, fre- 
quently side-steps, subsides, or backs out entirely. I saw one approach a Ben- 
dire Thrasher that was eating, and suddenly pounce on him. He had the 
thrasher down and I was thinking of offering my friendly services as a board 
of arbitration, when the under bird crawled from beneath and soon gave the 
woodpecker the thrashing of his career. Several times 1 have seen the wood- 
peckers start to attack Bendire and Palmer thrashers, but they were always 
bluffed or beaten at the game. With the Bronzed Cowbirds it is a drawn bat- 
tle, sometimes one and then the other backing down. Most other birds, such as 
Cardinals, Abert Towhees, Dwarf Cowbirds and Cactus Wrens do not attempt 
to assert their rights, but always take a rear seat. When it is woodpecker 
versus woodpecker it seems not to be a case of “Thrice armed is he who hath 
his quarrel just”, but rather, “Four times he who gets his blow in fust”. 
1 had two bird tables about twenty feet apart, and frequently one wood- 
pecker might be peacefully assimilating watermelon, when another one would 
