AMERICAN THREE-TOED WOODPECKER 119 



E. H. Forbush (1927) says that "Miss Caroline E. Hamilton of 

 Greenfield, Massachusetts, observed in late September an individual 

 that remained in a yard from daylight till dark, making the rounds of 

 the trees and remaining longest on the fruit trees at the tiny holes 

 attributed to Sapsuckers. She said that the bird seemed to find good 

 food in these pits, and it may have been eating some of the cambium." 

 He writes further : 



Mr. E. O. Grant, a faithful correspondent of Patten, Maine, travels over con- 

 siderable region and north into Quebec, spending much time in the woods. On 

 March 6, 1922, he wrote that the spruce budworm had killed about thirty percent 

 of the spruce in that region and neai'ly all the fir, and that among the dead 

 trees he saw hundreds of both the three-toed species, together with nearly equal 

 numbers of Downy Woodpeckers and Hairy Woodpeckers. Food for the birds 

 was very plentiful, as dark-beetles and spruce-borers were numerous. When an 

 invasion of caterpillars strips coniferous trees and thus exposes their trunks and 

 branches to the hot summer sun, dark-beetles attack and virtually girdle them 

 with numerous tunnels beneath the bark ; borers get in and sometimes most of 

 the trees die. The woodpeckers, concentrating on these dead trees from all the 

 forest around about, help to keep down the undue increase of bark-beetles and 

 borers which, if they became too numerous, might attack some live trees. 



Behavior. — Lucien M. Turner says in his unpublished notes: "The 

 manner of flight of this species is less vigorous than in Picoides 

 arctictis, yet differing in a manner that is difficult to describe; the 

 unfolding of the wings when preparing to make the upward swoop is 

 quicker, the stroke of the wing not so strong, and the plunge not so 

 deep." 



Both species of three-toed woodpeckers are fearless birds, tame, and 

 unsuspicious, probably because of their unfamiliarity with man and 

 his hostile intentions; both are less active than most other wood- 

 peckers, this species being particularly quiet in its movements and 

 sedentary in its habits. Mr. Brewster (1898) writes: 



My previous impression that Picoides americanus is a very much less active and 

 restless bird than P. arcticus, was fully confirmed by the behavior of this male 

 who was almost if not quite as slow and lethargic of movement as a sapsucker. 

 He would spend minutes at a time clinging to one spot and when he moved up 

 the tree trunks it was in a singularly slow, deliberate manner. Only when at or 

 near the nest did he show real animation. * * * 



I have rarely seen a nesting bird so alert and keen of hearing as was this 

 Picoides. The sound of our voices or the slightest noise made by an oar or 

 paddle would bring him at once to the entrance of the hole, even when we were 

 forty or fifty yards away, and every few minutes when we were sitting perfectly 

 still he would look out turning his head in every direction. He would not leave 

 the hole, however, until we were within a few yards of the foot of the tree and 

 after he had drummed awhile he would return to the stub while we were 

 sitting near its base with the camera directed towards it. * * * 



On returning to the stub the bird would usually strike against it about 

 two feet below the hole and reaching it by two or three quick, upward hops 

 would cling to its lower edge, alternately looking in and down at us. * * * 

 He did not once enter the nest while we were near the tree, nor did he again 



