WESTERN BIRDS FUckers 



get that they pay for all they get and that these same 

 orchards would be worm-eaten without the birds. 



GENUS COLAPTES : FLICKERS. 



The Flickers are the largest (save for the Ivory and 

 Pileated), best known, and most widely distributed 

 members of the Woodpecker family. They are not typi- 

 cal Woodpeckers, being particularly fond of ants, which 

 they eat in great numbers. The bills of these birds are 

 slightly curved and the tongues have fewer barbs than 

 most members of the family. The long tongue is studded 

 on the upper surface with fine points which turn back- 

 ward, and the salivar>' glands are large so that a bird 

 has only to run its saliva-coated tongue into an ant hole 

 to reap a harvest of these little pests, as many as 5,000 

 of which having been found in the stomach of a single 

 bird. Preferring ants to acorns, or grubs, for which it 

 must bore, it is often seen on the ground and is the most 

 terrestrial member of the family. 



Flickers are friendly birds that are fond of the open 

 country, rather than the deep forests, and come freely to 

 orchards or gardens, sometimes nesting in boxes put up 

 for them, or in some stump, or tree, near mankind, plac- 

 ing the nest from a few feet up, to a great height. 



Prof. Beal tells us that their flesh is considered good 

 eating and that formerly quantities of them were killed 

 when wild blackberries were ripe, the birds' fondness 

 for the fruit making them unmindful of an approaching 

 enemy. Fortunately, most States now have laws pro- 

 tecting these handsome and interesting birds. 



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