THE YELOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER. 



When the veins of the birch overflow in the spring, 

 Then I sharpen my bill and make the woods ring, 

 Till forth gushes — rewarding my tap, tap, tap ! 

 The food of us Suckers — the rich, juicy sap. 



— C. C. M. 



,ANY wild birds run up 

 and down trees, and it 

 seems to make little dif- 

 ference which end up 

 they are temporarily, 

 skirmishing ever to the right and left, 

 whacking the bark with their bills, 

 then quiet a brief moment, and again 

 skirmishing around the tree. Some- 

 times an apple tree, says a recent 

 writer, will have a perfect circle, not 

 seldom several rings or holes round 

 the tree — holes as large as a buck 

 shot. The little skirmisher makes 

 these holes, and the farmer calls it a 

 Sapsucker. And such it is. Dr. 

 Coues, however, says it is not a bird, 

 handsome as it is, that you would care 

 to have come in great numbers to your 

 garden or orchard, for he eats the sap 

 that leaks out through the holes he 

 makes in the trees. When a great 

 many holes have been bored near 

 together, the bark loosens and peels 

 off, so that the tree is likely to die. 

 The Sapsucker also eats the soft inner 

 bark which is between the rough out- 

 side bark and the hard heart-wood of 

 the tree, which is very harmful. 

 Nevertheless the bird does much good 

 in destroying insects which gather to 

 feed on the oozing sap. It sweeps 

 them up in its tongue, which is not 

 barbed, like that of other woodpeckers, 

 but has a little brush on the end of it. 

 It lacks the long, extensile tongue 

 which enables the other species to 

 probe the winding galleries of wood- 

 eating larv^se. 



Mr. William Brewster states that 

 throughout the White Mountains of 

 New Hampshire, and in most sections 

 of Northern Maine, the Yellow-Bellied 

 Woodpeckers outnumber all the other 



species in the summer season. Their 

 favorite nesting sites are large dead 

 birches, and a decided preference is 

 manifested for the vicinity of water, 

 though some nests occur in the in- 

 terior of woods. The average height 

 of the nesting hole from the ground is 

 about forty feet. Many of the nests 

 are gourd-like in shape, with the ends 

 very smoothly and evenly chiseled, 

 the average depth being about four- 

 teen inches. The labors of excavating 

 the nest and those of rearing the 

 young are shared by both sexes. 

 While this Sapsucker is a winter resi- 

 dent in most portions of Illinois, and 

 may breed sparingly in the extreme 

 northern portion, no record of it has 

 been found. 



A walk in one of our extensive 

 parks is nearly always rewarded by 

 the sight of one or more of these 

 interesting and attractive birds. They 

 are usually so industriously engaged 

 that they seem to give little attention 

 to your presence, and hunt away, 

 tapping the bole of the tree, until 

 called elsewhere by some more promis- 

 ing field of operations. Before taking 

 flight from one tree to another, they 

 stop the insect search and ^aze in- 

 quisitively toward their destination. 

 If two of them meet, there is often a 

 sudden stopping in the air, a twisting 

 upward and downward, followed by a 

 lively chase across the open to the top 

 of a dead tree, and then a sly peeping 

 round or over a linlb, after the man- 

 ner of all Woodpeckers. A rapid 

 drumming with the bill on the tree, 

 branch or trunk, it is said, serves for a 

 love-song, and it has a screaming call 

 note. 



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