No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 229 



others, like the quail, i'eed upon both seeds and insects and some 

 feed upon insects alone, even during the winter, when it is popularly 

 thought that no insects are to be found. It is to these and the 

 necessity of preserving them that we wish to call especial attention 

 at this time. 



"Two very important small birds that remain with us all winter 

 and feed entirely upon insects, especially in orchards, are the downy 

 and hairy woodpeckers. Members of this family can be known 

 by their dipping flight, their short, sharp notes, their sharp, rigid 

 tail feathers pressed against the tree for support, two toes in 

 front and two behind, insuring a firmer grasp, their hard pecking 

 against wood, their modest white and black colors, and the patch 

 of red on the head of the male. They are found mostly on the 

 trunks and larger limbs of the trees, head upward, searching for 

 grubs, chrysaiids, etc. They are erroneously called "sapsuckers," 

 and are killed through ignorance of their own value. They do not 

 suck sap, and do not injure the trees. Protect the small wood- 

 peckers of the winter time and thus protect your fruit crops. 



''Two other valuable winter birds are the two species of nut- 

 hatches. These can be known by their drab and grayish colors, 

 no red, the call of which is a nasal "pank," and their alighting on the 

 trunks and larger branches of trees, mostly head downward. They 

 do not peck into wood, as do the woodpeckers, but they pry into 

 every crack and crevice and under every possible scale of bark in 

 search of insects of any and ail kinds and stages, and will freely 

 eat eggs, such as those of the pear tree psylla, apple aphids, etc., 

 larval such as hibernate beneath loose bark, pupye or chrysaiids of 

 all kinds of insects that are to be found in cracks and under bark, 

 and adults or mature insects that are hibernating. For the extrac- 

 tion of such pests these nuthatches have bills that are especially 

 long, slender, straight and pointed. 



^'Mr. Mann, a well-known pear grower near Rochester, N. Y., told 

 the writer that one year the pear tree psylla had destroyed his 

 entire pear crop, amounting to thousands of dollars in value, and 

 the eggs of the insects were so numerous in the fall that he thought 

 there were no prospects of a crop the following year, but the nut- 

 hatches, both species, worked in fiocks in his orchard all winter, 

 and in the spring he could scarcely find an insect left. The birds 

 of this one species had saved him thousands of dollars in one winter. 

 These birds are also often mistaken for the so-called sapsucker and 

 ignorantly killed. Is it any wonder that we advise all fruit growers 

 and others to preserve their birds? 



"Another remarkably valuable bird of the winter time is the 

 common chickadee. It can be known by its small size, black cap 

 on its head, bluish-gray back and lighter under side, and especially 



