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LEWIS’ WOODPECKER. 
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, on 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 Walilamet, 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 crossways 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 
