18 BULLETIN 174, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



2 percent for the year. Spiders with their cocoons of eggs, includ- 

 ing one jointed spider (Solpiigidae), and a few millepeds, were eaten 

 to the extent of about 3.5 percent, which completes the quota of 

 animal food." 

 He says further: 



The vegetable food of the hairy woodpecker may be considered under four 

 heads : Fruit, grain, seeds, and miscellaneous vegetable substances. Fruit 

 amounts to 5.22 percent of the food, and was contained in 54 stomachs, of which 

 13 held what was diagnosed as domestic varieties, and 41 contained wild species. 

 Rubus seeds (blackberries or raspberries) were identified in 4 stomachs, and 

 were counted as domestic fruit, but it is perhaps more probable that they were 

 wild. * * * Of wild fruit 18 species were identified. It constitutes the 

 great bulk of the fruit eaten, and is nearly all of varieties not useful to man. 



Corn was the only grain discovered in the food. It was found in 10 stomachs, 

 and amounted to 1.37 percent. * * * The seed of poison ivy and poison 

 sumac {Rhus radicans and R. vernix) were found in 17 stomachs, and as they 

 usually pass through the alimentary canal uninjured, the birds do some harm 

 by scattering the seeds of these noxious plants. * * * Cambium, or the in- 

 ner bark of trees, was identified in 23 stomachs. Evidently the hairy does but 

 little damage by denuding trees of their bark. Mast, made up of acorns, hazel- 

 nuts, and beechnuts, was found in 50 stomachs. It was mostly taken in the fall 

 and winter months, and appears to be quite a favorite food during the cooler part 

 of the year. 



Illustrating the quantities of insects eaten by individual birds, F. H. 

 King (1883), Wisconsin, writes: "Of twenty-one specimens examined, 

 eleven had eaten fifty-two wood-boring larvae; five, thirteen geome- 

 tric! caterpillars ; ten, one hundred and five ants ; six, ten beetles ; two, 

 two cockroaches; two, nine ootheca of cockroaches; two, two moths; 

 one, a small snail; one, green corn; one, a wild cherry; and one, red 

 elder berries. * * * One of the above birds had in its stomach 

 eleven wood-boring larvae (Lamides?) and twelve geometers; an- 

 other, thirteen larvae of long-horn beetles and four cockroach ootheca ; 

 another, nine wood-boring larvae ; and two others together had three 

 wood-boring larvae, and nine larvae not coleopterous." 



V. A. Alderson (1890) published the following interesting note: 

 "Last summer, potato bugs covered every patch of potatoes in Mara- 

 thon County, (being my home county,) Wis. One of my friends here, 

 found his patch an exception, and therefore took pains to find the 

 reason, and observed a hairy woodpecker, making frequent visits to 

 the potato field and going from there to a large pine stub a little 

 distance away. 



"After observing this for about six weeks, he made a visit to the 

 pine stub and found, on inspection, a large hole in its side about 

 fifteen feet up. He took his axe and cut down the stub, split it open, 

 and found inside, over two bushels of bugs. All had their heads off 

 and bodies intact." 



