SOUTHERN RED-BREASTED SAPSUCKER 149 



Fritz (1937) has, on several occasions, found this sapsucker attack- 

 ing redwood trees. "In each instance the individual tree was 'pep- 

 pered' with holes in horizontal rows, from the base to the top. In 

 virgin timber, it is only an occasional tree that is attacked, and one 

 searches in vain for another victim in the general vicinity. * * * 



"During the present year, the writer came upon his first example 

 of sapsucker work on so-called second-growth redwood. * * * 

 The sapsuckers attacked every tree in two groups, or families, of 

 sprouts." 



W. L. Dawson (1923) writes: 



The red-breasted sapsucker does puncture trees and drink sap both in summer 

 and winter. In summer it attacks in this fashion not only pine, fir, aspen, 

 alder, cottonwood and willow trees, but such orchard trees as apple, pear, prune 

 and the like, as may lie within Transition areas. In winter at lower levels it 

 gives attention to evergreen trees, white birch, mountain ash, peach, plum, 

 apricot, English walnut, elder, and pepper trees. * * * Instead of gleaning 

 at random, as we might expect, the Sapsucker makes careful selection, like 

 a prudent forester, of a single tree, and confines his attentions henceforth, even 

 though it be through succeeding seasons, to that one tree. Starting well 

 toward the top of an evergreen, or well up on the major branches of an orchard 

 tree, the bird works successively downward in perpendicular rows, whose 

 borings are sometimes confluent. In this way the bird secures an ever-fresh 

 how of sap, from below. If carried on too extensively, or persisted in for 

 successive seasons, these operations will sometimes cause 'a tree to bleed fatally, 

 or at least to fall easy victim to insect pests. I have myself seen limbs of 

 mountain ash trees, pear trees, and English walnut, done to death in this 

 fashion. Yet it is only fair to say that but one or two trees in an orchard may 

 be attacked, and there is scarcely more danger of the trouble spreading than 

 there would be from successive strokes of lightning. * * * 



For the rest, Sphyrapicus rul)cr is a large consumer of ants, and does some 

 good in the destruction of leaf-eating beetles. Berries of the pepper trees 

 (Schinns molle) 'are eaten to some extent, in winter, as are also, regrettably, 

 seeds of the poison oak. 



W. Otto Emerson (1893) says: "One I watched every morning 

 from my tent fly to the top of a tall burnt tree and rap its roll-call 

 as a kind of warning may be to the flying insects. It would then 

 sail out like a flycatcher, catch an insect, and return to the burnt 

 tree-top. Its movements were very graceful and regular. As it 

 dipped or circled around for this or that insect the sunlight catching 

 on the red breast lit it up like a patch of flame." He says else- 

 where (1899) : "One I found in a willow tree trying to get the best 

 of a yellow jacket's nest, dodging back and forth either to get a 

 mouthful of their stored sweets or the jackets themselves." 



Junius Henderson (1927) gives, in his table, the percentages of 

 animal and vegetable food, exclusive of sap, taken by this sapsucker. 

 Based on a study of 34 stomachs the total animal food made up 69 

 percent and the total vegetable food 31 percent of the whole; 42 



