138 DOWNY WOODPECKER 



we may have always with us, even in the storm- 

 iest winter weather, all for the slight trouble of 

 nailing a piece of suet or fresh pork on a tree. 

 Though we can gain its company by feeding it, 

 the Downy is quite capable of looking after it- 

 self in winter, living like the Chickadee on what 

 it extracts from cocoons, together with insect eggs 

 and larvae which it gets from the bark. As 

 Major Bendire says : " Unfortunately, it is also 

 considered a Sapsucker, and many of these ex- 

 ceedingly useful little Woodpeckers are killed 

 yearly through lamentable ignorance, under the 

 supposition that they injure the fruit-trees by 

 boring in the bark, while in fact they render the 

 horticulturist inestimable service by ridding his 

 orchard of innumerable injurious insects, their 

 eggs and larvje, and few of our native birds de- 

 serve our good will more than the little Downy 

 Woodpecker. The most stringent jDrotection is 

 none too good for it." 



Besides the accusation of being a Sapsucker, 

 Downy is accused of eating fruit. The falsity of 

 this charge is shown by the fact that, of 140 

 stomachs examined by the experts of the Biologi- 

 cal Survey in the Department of Agriculture, only 

 3 contained fruit; apple being found in 2 and 

 strawberries in 1. On the other hand, almost 75 

 per cent, of the bird's food is insects. Eleven 

 Woodpeckers taken in Kansas in winter con- 

 tained 10 percent, of grasshopper eggs. The little 



