NoUs on llic liirdfi. 34S 



|)U'tely. The young woodpeckers, those Ji.itched the pi-evh)us spring, seemed 

 to have reached tlieir most voracious aj,'e Just when the yoiuig ears were 

 ill (he condition to suffer most, 'i'lie damage done the whole country over 

 was very gi-eat indeed. A little earii 

 liaid their respects to the ri|ieiiing 

 It is prohahly a very conservative 

 early apples at 10 per cent. 



I'.ut we had a very uniipie way ol 

 of apples. The method may he desc 

 (gray ash was the hest), was set firmly in the ground under tlie apple or 

 cherry tree which it was desirous to protect, the pole being long enough to 

 project two or three feet above the top of the tree. Woodpeckers coming lo 

 the tree would almost invariably alight lirst upon the side of the pole. The 

 boy who was "out for woodpeckers" wouhl station himself under the tree 

 at the base of the pole where, with a heavy axe or maul in hand, he would 

 await the coming of the bird. The foliage of the tree was thick enough to 

 prevent the woodjieckers from seeing him. yet not so dense as to prevent the 

 boy .seeing the upper part of the pole upon which the birds would alight. 

 When one arrived and alighted on one side of the pole a smart blow on the 

 same side of the pole would knock the breath out of the bird and it would 

 fall to the ground where it would be promptly kilU'd. if not already dead. 

 In this w^ay it was an easy matter for one person to kill a dozen or more 

 woodpeckers in a forenoon. 



Another interesting method by which an occasional woodpecker or 

 flicker could be killed was by means of the horsehair snare. These birds 

 were in the habit of alighting on the upper end of the stakes of the stake- 

 and-rider fences witli which most of the fields in those days were sur- 

 rounded. With a 2-inch auger, a hole was bored an inch or two inches deep 

 on the upper side near the upper end of a stake which woodpeckers had 

 been observed to frequent. Two or three grains of corn were placed in the 

 bottom of the hole and then a strong horsehair snare was placed around 

 the hole so tliat it was a trifle smaller in one diameter than the hole, yet 

 rested upon the wood either at the top and bottom or on the sides of the hole. 

 This hair snare or slii>noose was tied to a short stout cord or small wire 

 which was firmly fastened to the stake. The woodpecker, alighting on the 

 stake, spies the corn and at once puts his head in the hole to get it. but 

 on withdrawing his head the liorsehair catches under the feathers of his 

 neck, draws tight and soon chokes him to death. AVhile this method was 

 hardly as sure a thing as the pole and axe. it was nevertheless quite 

 effective, albeit not at all humane. 



In those days, the multitude of dead trees in the "deadenings"' on the 

 farms, to say nothing of the hundreds of acres of primeval forest and open 

 woodland, afforded exceptionally favorable nesting sites for the Re<l-heads 

 and the other woodpeckers. Tliese have now almost entirely disapiK^ared 

 and with their passing the woodpeckers also have gone, so that now none 

 of the woodpeckers is nearly so abundant as they were .'50 to 50 years ago. 



Another thing which has had much to do with the decrea.se in the abun- 

 dance of the Ked-headed Woodpecker was the destruction of the oak and 

 beech forests which produced such a great part of the winter food of these 

 birds. One of the pretty sights of the fall months was that of the wood- 



