RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER 241 



bugs {H emiptera) , crickets {Orthopterd) , and spiders, with a few 

 bones of a small tree frog found in 1 stomach taken in Florida." 



The red-bellied woodpecker eats some corn, which it has been seen 

 to steal from corncribs and from bunches of corn hung up to dry. 

 Various berries have been recorded in its food, besides those men- 

 tioned aboA^e, mulberries, elderberries, bayberries, blueberries, and 

 the berries of the Virginia creeper, cornel, holly, dogwood, and poison 

 ivy, also the seeds of ragweed and wild sarsaparilla, hazelnuts, and 

 pecans. N. M. McGuire (1932) saw one feeding at the borings of 

 a yellow-bellied sapsucker on a sugar maple tree, driving the latter 

 away; he "would fly at the Sapsucker, causing him to dodge around 

 a limb in order to keep out of the way." 



Dr. B. H. Warren (1890) first called attention to the orange-eat- 

 ing habit of the red-bellied woodpecker in Florida, where it is called 

 the "orange sapsucker" or "orange borer." He found on inquiry that 

 these birds often destroyed large numbers of oranges when they were 

 ready for picking and that "they damaged the orange trees by boring 

 holes in them and sucking the sap." He collected 26 of these wood- 

 peckers in one orchard, 11 of which had "fed to a more or less extent 

 on oranges." 



William Brewster (1889) saw a red-bellied woodpecker eating the 

 pulp of a sweet orange at Enterprise, Fla, He says that it attacked 

 the orange on the ground, pecking at it in a slow and deliberate way 

 for several minutes. On examining the orange he found it to be 

 decayed on one side. "In the sound portion were three holes, each 

 nearly as large as a silver dollar, with narrow strips of peel between 

 them. The pulp had been eaten out quite to the middle of the fruit. 

 Small pieces of rind were thickly strewn about the spot. Upon 

 searching closely I discovered several other oranges that had been 

 attacked in a similar manner. All were partially decayed, and were 

 lying on the ground. I was unable to find any on the trees which 

 showed any marks of the Woodpecker's bill." 



Certainly the habit of eating fallen and partially decayed oranges 

 does no injury to the orange groves, but D. Mortimer (1890) tells 

 a different story: 



While gathering fruit or pruning orange trees, I frequently found oranges 

 that had been riddled by this woodpecker, and repeatedly saw the bird at 

 work. I never observed it feeding upon fallen oranges. It helped itself 

 freely to sound fruit that still hung on the tree, and in some instances I 

 have found ten or twelve oranges on one trees that had been tapped by it. 

 Where an orange accidentally rested on a branch in such a way as to make 

 the flower end accessible from above or from a horizontal direction the Wood- 

 pecker chose that spot, as throiigh it he could reach into all the sections of 

 the fruit, and when this was the case there was but one hole in the orange. 

 But usually there were many holes around it. It appeared that after having 

 once commenced on an orange, the woodpecker returned to the same one 



