io8 Bird - Lore 



ing regular 'sugar bushes,' visiting the different trees as often as the sap collects. 

 Occasionally, it is reported, the sap ferments and the unsophisticated Sapsuckers 

 are treated to a beverage which rapidly causes them to act in a questionable 

 manner. Indeed one has been reported to have become so confused that it 

 mistook a man's leg for the limb of a tree, and very often they fly into windows, 

 or dash themselves against the sides of houses, or fly erratically through the 

 trees as though they did not see very distinctly. Whether this is due to fer- 

 mented sap or to some other cause, has never been definitely settled, and there 

 is still plenty of opportunity for experiment and observation to establish the 

 truth. The Sapsuckers are degenerate Woodpeckers, and although they still 

 retain the characteristic bill, feet, and stiff tails, their tongues, instead of being 

 greatly protrusible, spearlike, and armed with barbs as in the true Woodpeckers, 

 have become spUt and brushlike for better gathering the sap. 



Were we to consider fully the food of all species of birds, we would discover 

 that there is scarcely an animal or vegetable substance that does not furnish 

 the food of some group of birds. Between the Loons and Grebes that find their 

 food at the bottom of the lakes, and the Swallows that dart over the trees, 

 there are birds, probing in^the soil, scratching its surface, turning over fallen 

 leaves, gleaning through the grass and herbage, searching the leaves and twigs 

 of shrubs, chiselling in the trunks of trees, and climbing about the branches; 

 and each bird has some adaptations, some modifications, some implements 

 that are fitted to its own peculiar food and method of securing it. — A. A. A. 



FROM YOUNG OBSERVERS 

 BLACKCAPS IN OKLAHOMA 



I am ten years old, and in the 4th-A grade at school, and since last February, 

 a year ago, when Daddy brought home a copy of 'Bird-Life,' I have been very 

 much interested in wild birds. Some time before that date. Daddy borrowed 

 several copies of Bird-Lore, and then subscribed for the dear little magazine. 



Our home is in Illinois, on a farm, with plenty of trees, underbrush, shrub- 

 bery, and a big orchard, where the birds can build their nests, and we also have 

 nest boxes for the Wrens and Martins, and window-boxes and feeding-shelves 

 for the birds in winter. When we return home, we are going to plant bushes 

 for seeds and berries, and a boulder bath-and-drinking place is to be placed on 

 the lawn. 



We have been living in this city since last October, and have only a small 

 back yard, with just a few young trees, but we think that if we had put up the 

 right kinds of bird-houses, and had put them up early enough, we would have 

 had Martins and Bluebirds, and maybe Wrens, as well as the Chickadees. 



Many of the birds here are quite different from those we have at home, 

 while others look almost the same, and really belong to the same families. The 



