SOME NOTES ON NEBRASKA BIRDS. 



105 



<^^^^. 

 ^ ^i' 



Fig. 32.— Belted Kingfisher. 



Oeder PICI. — Woodpeckers, Wrynecks, etc. 



Family PICID.ffi. — Woodpeckers. 



Taking the woodpeckers as a family, there are but few persons but 

 who will readily admit that these birds are a very useful group. 

 Feeding as many, in fact most of them, do, upon the larvae of 

 wood-boring insects, they can readily do much greater good for the 

 actual number destroyed in comparison with others that feed upon the 

 foliage of trees. Not unfrequently will a single borer kill an entire 

 tree if left to itself, while hundreds of foliage-feeding caterpillars of 

 the same size make but litttle effect upon the appearance, to say noth- 

 ing of the health of it. 



Separately, the different species of woodpeckers vary much in habits 

 and the nature of food taken, therefore it would be quite difficult to 

 summarize as to the group with respect to their relation to agriculture. 

 Several years ago the United States Department of Agriculture under- 

 took the study of these birds from this standpoint, with the result, so 

 far as made public, at least, of showing that all of the species and sub- 

 species embraced in the study — nineteen — with but a single exception, 

 8 



