8 USEFUL BIRDS. 
the songster amongst the leaves, he will be found to be actively 
searching for insects, even while giving voice to his song. The 
nest is pensile, in a fork, and characteristic in its structure, con- 
taining strips of vines, bark of trees, frequently pieces of paper. 
This nest may be thirty or forty feet above the ground. Eggs, 
three or four in number, white, the larger end sparingly spotted. 
The bird is about six and a quarter inches long. Top of head, 
gray ; white line over the eye, which is red. The remainder of body 
olive colored, except under parts, which are white. We found this 
species to be the most abundant of its family in the Red River 
Valley some years ago. 
DOWNY WOODPECKER. 
(Plate 2, Fig. 9.) 
A true benefactor in that its food consists almost entirely of in- 
jurious insects, and it is with us both winter and summer. It is 
the smallest of our woodpeckers, being only six and four-fifths 
inches long. Black above: a scarlet band on back of neck; white on 
middle of back; under part, white; central feathers of tail, black; 
the outer ones white with black markings; wings, black spotted 
with white. Length, 6%4 inches. The female lacks the scarlet 
patch on back of neck. It nests in holes in trees. Often seen in 
winter in company with nuthatches, chickadees, and brown creep- 
ers. What little vegetable food it eats consists of seeds of poison 
ivy, sumac, etc. Seventeen Wisconsin specimens had eaten forty 
insect larvae, twenty wood-boring grubs, three caterpillars, seven 
ants, four beetles, a chrysalid, one hundred and ten small bugs, a 
spider, with a few acorns, small seeds, and a little woody fibre, 
apparently taken by accident with the grubs. Three-fourths of the 
food of one hundred and forty specimens examined by the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture consisted of insects. Nearly one-fourth con- 
sisted of ants, chiefly those which were caring for plant lice, or 
burrowing in wood. 
BROWN CREEPER. 
(Plate 2, Fig. 10.) 
This inconspicuous, active bird being with us throughout the 
entire year is to be ranked amongst our most useful assistants in 
keeping down injurious insects, for it eats many insects in hiber- 
nating stage in winter besides consuming large numbers of insect 
eggs which would otherwise hatch in the spring. It appears to be 
