130 Bird -Lore 



the fall, may furnish the Downy with a toothsome bit; but it is the worm 

 and not the ripe apple which he is after. 



When food is scarce in the winter, both the Hairy and Downy are glad of a 

 piece of suet, and the Hairy will not disdain a few ears of corn. These indus- 

 trious guardians of the trees are sometimes called the Big and Little Sap- 

 sucker, but they do not deserve the name. The amount of sap they take is so 

 small as to be hardly worth mentioning. It is true that in eating the seeds of 

 the poison ivy and poison sumac, they, in common with many other birds, 

 distribute these objectionable plants. They may also get a trifle of the inner 

 bark of the tree, when drilling for borers. The experts now engaged in study- 

 ing the spread of the dreaded chestnut disease fungus have a suspicion that 

 birds which find their food on the bark of trees may unwittingly spread this 

 contagion by means of the adhesion of the fungus to their bills and feet. If 

 this should prove to be so, it would furnish a striking instance of the 

 unfortunate results of man's interference with nature. By introducing foreign 

 species of the chestnut, which in this country, rapidly succumb to and spread 

 the noxious fungus with which they may be infected, man has upset the balance 

 of nature to such an extent that even the most beneficial birds may work some 

 harm by spreading the contagion, at the same time that they are ridding the 

 trees of deadly insect pests. 



It is difficult to see how many species of trees could thrive, or even survive, 

 without the unremitting care of the Woodpeckers. Alexander Wilson spoke 

 of the entire genus of Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers as "birds which Prov- 

 idence seems to have formed for the protection of our fruit and forest trees." 

 He had the good judgment to see that the bounty laws enacted in his time 

 for the destruction of these beneficial birds were the result of wholly misguided 

 public sentiment. His admonition, "Examine better into the operations of 

 nature, and many of our mistaken opinions and groundless prejudices will be 

 abandoned for more just, enlarged, and humane modes of thinking," sounds 

 like a prophecy which in this day and generation is being fulfilled. 



