TREE-TRUNK BIRDS 195 
Nature, knowing that the eggs would be hidden in the 
dark nesting-hole, did not think it necessary to decorate 
them for their better protection as she does the eggs laid 
in open nests. 
“To name the injurious insects, moths, and caterpillars 
our little Downy eats would require a long list, but, as he 
is a lover of orchards in spring and summer, we may 
mention the apple-tree borer as one against whom he 
wages war, and here, by his delicate sense of touch, he 
locates the larve of the codling-moth. ‘Every stroke 
with which he knocks at the door of an insect’s retreat 
sounds the crack of doom. He pierces the bark with his 
beak, then with his barbed tongue drags forth an insect, 
and moves on to tap a last summons on the door of the 
next in line.’ 
“Boring beetles, bark beetles, weevils, caterpillars, ants, 
and plant-lice, the imagoes of night-moths, as well as 
the eggs of many insects, are also on his bill of fare. 
Sometimes he has been accused of boring holes for 
sap-sucking, but this is disproven; where a hole exists 
it is because insect prey, in one of its many forms, hide 
beneath. 
“Fortunately, we have many families of the little Downy 
in the old orchard, and the fact that they are good patrons 
of Goldilocks’ lunch-counter does not seem to make them 
relax their vigilance about the apple trees, so that I 
wonder if it may not be their care, together with the other 
tree-trunk birds, to which we owe the keeping of the trees, 
during the ten long years they have been neglected by 
man. For, though the trees in Birdland are old, gnarled, 
and vine-draped, yet they are neither worm-eaten nor 
