130 FLICKER 



The parents feed the young by regurgitation, 

 which is very fortunate, as bringing food by the 

 billf ul to such large broods would be a good deal 

 like feeding a giant with a teasj^oon. Audubon 

 once found a nest containing eighteen young 

 birds and three eggs. 



Though the Flicker young have the good taste to 

 like strawberries, the family food is ants. In times 

 of grasshopper plagues, the Wood- 

 peckers very philanthropically 

 turn to and help kill off the pests ; 

 but at ordinary times they work 

 more for the housewife and florist, 

 Fig. 65. destroying the ants that invade the 



Ant, eaten by pantry and foster insect lice. Al- 

 most half of the total food of the 

 Flicker is ants, 3,000 of which were found in each 

 of two stomachs — stomachs whose owners appar- 

 ently were not greatly in need of a tonic ! This 

 explains what the birds are do- 

 ing when they are seen on the 

 ground, and scared up from 

 Fig. 00. ant-hills in old pastures. The 



Flicker, showing long ground habit of the Flicker 

 tongue extended. -^ ^^ dominant that his dress 



conforms to the color of the earth ; his tongue, too, 

 is unusually long and has a rough surface to which 

 his sticky saliva glues the ants which he picks up 

 or probes out of the ant-hills. 



Like many innocent birds, the Flicker has been 



