This last name is more fitting than yellow-bellied woodpecker, there is so 

 little yellow on the under parts, but the name that fits him best is the one that 

 he has earned — sapsucker. He arrives late in March or early in April soon after 

 the sap has begun to flow in the trees. The hard or sugar maple seems to be his 

 favorite tree and he promptly goes to work digging holes in the bark, often rows 

 of holes half way or more around the tree. These pits soon fill with sap and 

 he delights in emptying his little artesian wells. He sometimes sits near a hole 

 for hours at a time collecting the sap as it comes, more frequently he goes from 

 hole to hole or from tree to tree. 



But, does he dig holes only in the maple ? Look at the basswood ! No won- 

 der the little boy wondered if it had had the smallpox ! Look at the poplar, birch, 

 hickory, apple and slippery elm trees! Evidently he is fond of the juicy inner 

 bark of these trees for their holes do not fill with sap as those of the maple do. 

 These trees give our well digger meat only while the maple gives him meat and 

 drink. 



The sapsucker is not the only one to sip the sugar water from the flowing 

 wells. 



In the Spring the sapsucker shows himself to be what all birds are — great 

 drinkers. At this season he may turn on the tap for a while, but the rest of the 

 year, like the other birds, he must find running or standing water or do as the 

 oriole does, tap some kind of juicy fruit as the apple or grape. This ought to be 

 a suggestion to the bird-lover and the fruit grower. If you wish to attract the 

 birds about the home, or tO' keep them from injuring the fruit, follow Mr. Law- 

 rence Bruner's advice and keep a pan of water where they may freely use it for 

 drinking and bathing. 



Sometimes the sapsucker is injurious to trees. He strips the outer bark off 

 to get at the inner bark ; sometimes he drills so many holes that the tree is really 

 girdled and set back in its growth or even killed. But when we note how 

 many of the great, thrifty basswoods, poplars, hickories and red-elms have had 

 the smallpox and are covered with pits, we conclude that the bird is not as harm- 

 ful as some people suppose him to be. 



You would think that when the Avoodpeckers had once mastered the art of 

 digging their food out of the limbs and trunks of trees they would stick to their 

 trade, but at least two of them do not. The flicker and the sapsucker have de- 

 parted from the ways of their fathers and have learned to prefer ants to wood- 

 boring grubs. The flicker is the greatest ant eater among birds and the supsucker 

 is next. Over one-third of his food consists of ants. 



The regular woodpecker tongue is a barbed spear and is used for piercing 

 grubs and drawing them from their burrows for food. Not so the tongue of the 

 sapsucker. His tongue is brushy at the end, like that of the flicker, and is much 

 better for getting sap from pits and ants from their holes than a spear-pointed 

 tongue would be. 



They really do considerable mischief by drilling holes in the bark of apple, 



213 



