200 BULLETIN 174, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



young, dragging the latter out of their nests and frequently leaving 

 them dead at the entrance of their holes." 

 He also relates the following personal experience: 



We noticed a red-headed woodpecker take something, apparently a bunch of 

 moss, from a crotch of a maple and carry it to a fence post of an adjacent 

 field. After worrying some time in trying to swallow something rather too large 

 for his gullet, he finally succeeded, after an effort, and then worked some little 

 time, evidently trying to secrete the remainder. Both of us had our field glasses 

 and were watching the bird's actions closely. After some little time he flew 

 back to the tree he had started from, while we proceeded to the fence post to 

 investigate, and, much to our disgust and surprise, we found the freshly killed 

 and partly eaten body of a young bird, almost denuded of feathers, securely 

 tucked away behind the loose bark of the post. His victim was too much muti- 

 lated to identify positively, but looked like a half-grown bluebird, whose head 

 had been crushed in, the brain abstracted, and the entire rump and entrails 

 torn out ; the only parts left intact were the breast, upper part of the back, and 

 the lower portion of the head. The missing parts had evidently just been eaten 

 by the rascal while clinging to the top of the post, and the remnant was then 

 hidden for future use. 



Howard Jones (1883), of Circleville, Ohio, reports the following 

 incident : 



Under the eaves of a large bam near Mt. Sterling, O., a colony of Cliff 

 Swallows have built for some years. Last year they were nearly exterminated 

 by several woodpeckers. The redheads would alight at the doors of the mud 

 huts and extract the eggs from the nests with their bills. In some nests the 

 necks or entrance-ways were so long that the woodpeckers could not reach the 

 eggs by this means, but not willing to be cheated of such choice food they 

 would climb around to the side, and with a few well directed blows of their 

 bills make openings large enough to enable them to procure the eggs. Of the 

 dozens of nests built not a single brood was reared in any. One woodpecker 

 bolder than the rest began eating hen's eggs wherever they could be found. 



Mr. DuBois says in his notes: "A redhead, seeing a young lark 

 sparrow flutter in the grass, attacked it and might have killed it, had 

 I not intervened. He had struck the young bird at one of his lores 

 and had brought blood. I have also seen this woodpecker attack a 

 young bluebird, on the ground, just after it had left the nest." 



But not all red -headed woodpeckers are cannibals or murderers; 

 perhaps many individuals never indulge in such practices; and all 

 of them have some harmless and useful feeding habits. Their insect- 

 eating habits are impressive. They are very fond of grasshoppers 

 and destroy them in large numbers. H. B. Bailey (1878) quotes the 

 following from a letter from G. S. Agersborg, of Vermillion, S. Dak. : 



Last spring in opening a good many birds of this species with the object of 

 ascertaining their principal food, I found in their stomachs nothing but young 

 grasshoppers. One of them, which had its headquarters near my house, was 

 observed making frequent visits to an old oak post, and on examining it I 

 found a large crack where the Woodpecker had inserted about one hundred 

 grasshoppers of all sizes (for future use, as later observations proved), which 

 were put in without killing them, but they were so firmly wedged in the crack 



