390 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
A provident storer in the Sequpia Park was more thrifty than wise, 
choosing the uncapped radiator of a government truck as a storehouse 
for his acorns! 1 
An odd habit of the Woodpeckers was happened on by Mr. Ligon in 
the Black Range. At dark, on March 15, 1913, seeing a bird enter a hole 
about eight feet up in an oak he closed it after it, and in the morning 
when he returned was surprised to find six birds in the one hole. As the 
Woodpeckers do not nest until the last of May, and then in high dead 
pines, it was, of course, a night roost (MS). 
A remarkable case of “Communism in the California Woodpecker” 
has been described by Frank A. Leach in the Condor. Eight or ten birds, 
which “seemed to form a colony,” not only worked together in excavat¬ 
ing the nests but apparently in incubating the eggs and feeding the 
young(1925, pp. 12-19). 
• Additional Literature.—Henshaw, II. W., Condor, XXIII, 109-118, 1921.— 
Peck, M. E., Condor, XXIII, 131, 1921.— Ritter, W. E., Condor, XXIII, 3-14, 
t921 (storage of acorns). 
LEWIS WOODPECKER: Asyndesmus lewisi Riley 
Plate 38 
Description. — Length: 10.5-11.5 inches, wing 6.5-6.8, tail 4.4-4.7. Adults: 
Upperparts glossy greenish black except for gray collar; face dull crimson , chest 
gray, changing to soft rose on belly. Feathers of collar and underparts bristly, 
“loosened and disconnected, being devoid of barbicels and booklets'' (Coues). 
Iris brown, bill black or dusky, legs and feet bluish gray. In female, gray of chest 
usually mixed with dusky. Young: Red of head (except in transition plumage) 
replaced by black or dusky, collar obsolete or wanting, underparts mostly grayish, 
feathers softer; wings sometimes slightly marked with white (on secondaries). 
Range. —Breeds in Transition Zone from southern parts of British Columbia 
and Alberta to Black Hills, South Dakota, and western Kansas, south to New 
Mexico, Arizona, and California; in winter from British Columbia (occasionally) 
south to Lower California, western Texas, and Chihuahua. 
State Records. —Nearly the whole of Colorado between 6,000 and 8,000 feet 
altitude is included in the breeding range of the Lewis Woodpecker, and this range 
extends south into suitably timbered parts of New Mexico. It was noted at Tres 
Piedras, about 8,000 feet, July 11-19, 1892 (Loring); (was seen feeding young, 
August 9, 1919, near Pojaque, in northern Santa Fe County, where they are fairly 
common in spring and summer and abundant in fall (Jensen)]; was found in the yellow 
pines of Mesa del Agua de la Yegua southeast of Las Vegas June 25, 1903, at 7,400 
feet (Bailey); [noted at Cuba, Valencia County, and on the Mescalero Indian Reser¬ 
vation; on the east slope of the Sacramentos, 35 miles northeast of Cloudcroft, 
where a nest was found June 15, 1917, in a large yellow pine at 6,500 feet (Ligon).] 
Young in the nest were found July 13, 1913, near the mouth of the Chama River, 
6,000 feet, and the species was common all the way up the Chama River to Horse 
Lake, where often a dozen were in sight at one time (Ligon). It may also breed 
near Oak Canyon, where it was numerous late in August, 1903; Long Canyon 
1 Stocktcn Record, February 14, 1925 
