DOWNY WOODPECKER 



139 



Fig. to. 

 Wood-bor 

 iner Larva. 



bird also destroys May beetles, plant lice, and ants. 

 A single wood-borer will often kill an entire tree, 

 and one fifth of the Downy's animal food con- 

 sists of caterpillars, many 

 of which bore into wood and 

 live on stems and leaves. 

 Indeed, the Downy is the 

 most beneficial of all the 

 useful Woodpecker family. 

 Its bill is a good excavating 

 tool, and its barbed tongue 

 also bears witness to its 

 effective search for insects 

 (Fig. 71). 



Downy's song is a thin 

 rattle, his call note a sharp 

 2)eel'-2)eek, a most grateful ^ ^^^' *J^^ 

 sound when it breaks the winter still- of Downy 

 ness. Seeing the birds about during Wood- 

 snowstorms, we wonder what becomes pecer, 



. -nil • 1 ^'^^ spear- 



of them m the still colder nights, but j„^ i„_ 

 the Downy takes good care of himself, sects and 

 Doctor Mearns says, in his interesting *^^^"" ^^^'' 

 account of the bird's habits : " At night 

 he is comfortably housed in a hole, which he 

 digs expressly for that purpose. Always ... so 

 far as ni}' experience goes, he places the entrance 

 to his burrow so as to face the sunny south." 

 One little chap whom the Doctor visited one 

 night shortly after sunset was " snugly ensconced 



