gRE*. 
THE YELLOW-BELLIED WOODPECKER. 97 
So far as my own observation has been, it is not found at 
all abundant in any part of these States; and I think, that, 
on the seaboard, it is rare. 
It arrives from the South, from about the 10th to the 20th 
of April, and soon commences pairing. I have never noticed 
any great peculiarity in its habits. It seems to prefer the 
woods to the more open districts, and very seldom indeed 
makes its appearance, in the breeding season, in the orchards 
and nurseries, where, as it is often said by persons who are 
prejudiced, it does considerable damage in boring into apple- 
trees and sucking the sap; hence it is called the ‘ Sap- 
sucker.” Jam not sufficiently acquainted with its habits, in 
the Western States, to say positively that it does not eat 
some of the inner bark of trees, when in pursuit of its 
favorite insect-food; but I cannot help thinking that the 
denunciations of it, so often seen in the Western papers, 
are exaggerated. 
Dr. Bryant, who has paid some attention to the examina- 
tion of the food of this bird, gives, in the “ Proceedings of 
the Boston Society of Natural History,” vol. X. 91, the fol- 
lowing remarks : — 
“Tt has long been known that some of our smaller woodpeckers 
pick out portions of the sound bark of trees, particularly of apple- 
trees, where there are no larvz, and apparently no inducement for 
them to do so. What their object is has never been satisfactorily 
established. In Massachusetts, I am not aware that these holes 
are ‘ever sufficiently large or numerous to cause any material injury 
to the apple-trees: they are generally seen in circles round the 
limbs or trunks of small irregularly rounded holes, and in this 
vicinity are made almost exclusively by the Downy Woodpecker 
(P. pubescens), aided occasionally by the Hairy Woodpecker (P. 
villosus). In certain parts of the West, however, it is said that 
great damage is done to orchards by the Yellow-bellied Wood- 
pecker (S. varius); and Dr. Hoy, of Racine, Wis., has advanced 
the theory that the object of the bird in so doing is to obtain the 
inner bark for food. A number of specimens of this bird, for- 
warded by Dr. Hoy to the Smithsonian Institution, have been 
ri 
