134 FROM BLOMIDON TO SMOKY. 



the drills, and hovering, drank sap from one or 

 more of them. In the other cases, the wood- 

 peckers being present, the hummers were driven 

 away. The work of the woodpeckers seemed 

 to me, armed as I was with an excellent opera 

 glass, and sitting not more than thirty feet from 

 the drills, to be perfectly plain in character. 

 Durins: the morninfr the female drilled four 

 or five new holes. They were above others in 

 perpendicular series. They yielded sap freely. 

 She was closely attended by the young one, who 

 occasionally swallowed pieces of the soft bark or 

 cambium layer taken from the bottom of the 

 drills. The female also ate some of it. When 

 not drilling or resting, the female dipped sap 

 from the holes near by. The male drilled no 

 holes but dipped in those yielding sap. The 

 dipping was done regularly and rather quickly, 

 often two or three times in each hole. The sap 

 glistened on the bill as it was withdrawn. I 

 could sometimes see the tongue move. The bill 

 was directed towards the lower, inner part of the 

 drill, which, as I found by examination, was cut 

 so as to hold the sap. I looked carefully again 

 and again to try to find insects in the sap, but 

 none were there although numbers crawled upon 

 the bark. Occasionally the birds by a nervous 

 motion of the head caught an insect. There 

 was no doubt as to when they did this, either on 



