NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 



dangerous tumour or cancer, and the tree heals up the 

 wounds and the danger is overcome. Woodpeckers 

 rarely attack sound wood. When making a home in a 

 tree trunk to rear a family, the bird usually attacks a 

 decayed spot and indirectly does the tree a valuable 

 service by removing the fungoid growth and dead 



wood, which gives the 

 cells of the tree an op- 

 portunity to form a shield 

 of woody tissue against 

 further attacks by fungi. 

 The woodpecker 

 possesses feet and claws 

 specially adapted for 

 climbing up, down, and 

 round about the tree 

 trunks and branches. 

 The stiff tail acts as a 

 support when the bird is 

 at work pecking out 

 decayed wood, or remov- 

 ing dead bark in search 

 of insects, their eggs, and grubs. Insects have a 

 terrible time when these feathered policemen of the 

 woods are plentiful. Those insects which bore into 

 and breed in timber are practically immune from the 

 attacks of other kinds of birds, and but for the 

 onslaughts of the woodpeckers the wood-boring 

 insects, which eat twice their own weight of wood 

 each day, would multiply and ruin the forests and 

 invade our orchards and gardens. 



90 



The Woodpecker eats the worm 

 in the wood. 



