BIRD BIOGRAPHIES 



six to eight inches. The drills were about a quarter of 

 an inch deep, and penetrated the bark and the outer part 

 of the wood. 



"In November, 1900, seven of the nine trees were dead 

 and the others were dying. The loss of sap must have 

 been an exhausting drain, but it was not the sole cause 

 of death. Beetles of the flat-headed apple-borer, attracted 

 by the exuding sap, had oviposited in the holes, and the 

 next generation, having thus gained an entrance, had fin- 

 ished the deadly work begun by the sapsuckers." ^ 



Mr. W. L. McAtee, of the Biological Survey, made the 

 following report on sapsuckers: "These birds have short, 

 brushy tongues not adapted to the capture of insects, while 

 the other woodpeckers have tongues with barbed tips which 

 can be extended to spear luckless borers or other insects 

 whose burrows in the wood have been reached by their 

 powerful beaks. The sapsuckers practically do not feed 

 on wood-borers or other forest enemies. Their chief in- 

 sect food is ants. About 15 per cent, of their diet con- 

 sists of cambium and the inner bark of trees, and they 

 drink a great deal of sap. 



"The parts of the tree injured by sapsuckers are those 

 that carry the rich sap which nourishes the growing wood 

 and bark. Sapsucker pecking disfigures ornamental trees, 

 giving rise to pitch streams, gummy excrescences, and de- 

 formities of the trunks. Small fruit trees, especially the 

 apple, are often killed, and whole young orchards have 

 been destroyed. 



"These birds inflict much greater financial loss by pro- 

 ducing defects in the wood of the far larger number of 



2 "Birds of a Maryland Farm," by Sylvester D. Judd— Bulletin 17, 

 Biological Survey. 



[138] 



