SONGLESS BIRDS. Woodpeckers 



Note : A rapid drumming witli the bill on the tree branch or trunk 



serves for a love-song, and it has a screaming call note. 

 Season : In migrations ; more abundant in fall than in spring. 

 Breeds : North from Massachusetts. 



Nest : In an unlined hole, which is often 18 or 20 inches deep. 

 Eggs: 5, ]pure white. 



The Sai^sucker is a superbly marked Woodpecker, but its 

 beauty is neutralized by its pernicious habit of boring holes 

 in the tree bark through which it siphons the sap or eats 

 the soft, inner bark. 



In some localities they will destroy large tracts of fruit 

 trees by stripping off the entire outer bark. Here, in the 

 garden, they attacked a large spruce one autimin, and the 

 next spring the trunk was white with the sap that leaked 

 from the hundreds of " taps," and the tree has never since 

 recovered its vitality. 



Where these birds are plentiful, many orchard owners 

 cover the tree trunks with fine wire netting, and it would 

 almost seem that the destruction of this species is justi- 

 fiable, but care should be taken not to confuse the other 

 innocent Woodpeckers with this red-crowned, red-throated 

 evil-doer. Only having seen the bird in its migrations, I 

 have never heard the wonderfully rapid drumming to which 

 Mr. Bicknell refers, and which he says does not occur until 

 the birds mate and is never heard in the autumn. This 

 tattoo, beat upon a tree with the beak, is, in fact, the love 

 note of the majority of Woodpeckers. 



Ked-lieaded Woodpecker : Melanerpes erthrocephaliis. 



Tricolour. 

 Plate VIII. Fig. 6. 



Length : 8.50-9.50 inches. 



Male and Female: Head, throat, and neck crimson. Back, wings, 

 and tail blue-black. White below. White band on wings, and 

 white rump. Bill horn-coloured, and about as long as head. 



Note : A guttural rattle, similar to the cry of the tree-toad. In April 

 a hoarse, hollow-sounding cry. (Bicknell.) 

 199 



