48 



Immature male in first year. Similar to the female, but back browner. 



Immature male in second year. Similar to the female, but with the throat 

 black and occasionally patches of chestnut on the under parts. 



L., 7.35; W., 3.20; T., 2.95. 



Nest, pensile, on trees. Eggs, four or five, bluish white spotted and scrawled 

 with purplish brown and black. 



WOODPECKERS, NUTHATCHES, TITMICE, ETC. 



The various species which constitute these families have been grouped together, 

 because of certain similarities in their habits, although structurally they differ 

 widely. They are all tree climbers, and obtain the greatest part of their food from 

 the trunks of trees, some of them by laboriously digging out the grubs which bore 

 into the solid wood, others by prying into every crack and crevice of the bark, where 

 they find insects in various stages of development. 



Of the Woodpeckers we have in Ontario nine species, namely, the Pileated 

 Woodpecker (better known as the "Cock of the Woods"), the Arctic Three-toed 

 Woodpecker, the American Three-toed Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker, Dovmy 

 Woodpecker, Yellow-bellied Woodpecker, Golden-winged Woodpecker, Red-headed 

 Woodpecker and Red-bellied Woodpecker. The first three are true birds of the forest, 

 very seldom showing themselves in the neighborhood of cultivation, so that, although 

 their services are of great value to the country, by reason of the constant war they 

 carry on against the borers, which are so injurious to our timber, we need not con- 

 sider them in this paper. The Hairy Woodpecker and the Downy Woodpecker are 

 two species that almost exactly resemble each other, both in habits and appearance, 

 the only material difference being in their size, the Hairy Woodpecker measuring 

 about nine inches in length, the Downy about six inches. Their food, which consists 

 almost entirely of insects, is obtained either by digging the grubs out of the wood, 

 or picking them out of the crevices of the bark in which they hide during the day. 

 Sometimes during the winter I have found the stomachs of these birds filled with 

 the seeds of the hemlock. These seeds seem to form a favorite food with many of 

 our birds at this season ; the berries of the sumach are also occasionally eaten by the 

 little Downy, perhaps for the sake of the small beetles that are always to be found 

 amongst them. These are the only two vegetable substances that I have ever known 

 either of these species to feed upon. 



Both these Woodpeckers are accused of injuring trees by boring holes in them to 

 obtain a flow of sap, which they are said to drink. This is a mistake. The bird 

 having the sap-sucking habit is the Yellow-bellied Woodpecker, an entirely different 

 species, of which I shall speak presently. Nature has most perfectly fitted these 

 birds for their task of ridding the trees of the grubs which bore into them. Their 

 beaks are hard, sharp and chisel-like, so that they are enabled to enlarge the holes 

 inhabited by these insects sufficiently to enable them 'to insert their long, barbed 

 toiigue. with which they extract the larvae from their hiding places. In the winter 

 these birds frequently visit the orchard, garden and shrubbery, and there they do 

 most valuable work, by destroying the chrysalids of the moths that produce the 

 leaf-eating caterpillars. The toughest cocoon ever spun by caterpillar is no protection 

 against the sharp beaks of these birds, even the strong case which encloses the chry- 

 salis of the large Cecropia moth is soon torn open when found by a Downy Wood- 

 pecker, and the contents devoured. Ants and borers in the trees are also greedily 

 eaten by both species ; in fact, nothing in the shape of insect life comes amiss to 

 them, that can be found within their reach. The valuable work done by these birds 



