32 OUR WINTER BIRD8. 



The hairy and downy woodpeckers are so much alike in 

 their appearance, habits, food, etc., that they may be considered 

 together. They difler very little in any of these respects, and 

 are also, perhaps, equally numerous. Their food, as per exami- 

 nation of a large number of stomachs in Nova Scotia, New Bruns- 

 wick and the North Eastern States, consists of from 68 to 70 per 

 cent animal food, 20 to 25 vegetable, 1 mineral, in both cases. 

 The animal food consisted of ants, beetle=, hugs, flies, caterpil- 

 lars, grasshoppers, spiders, myriopods, etc. There is one pecul- 

 iarity that appears common to all the woodpeckers here, and that 

 is that if there come one or two sharp, cold, very frost\^ days you 

 will never see a woodpecker at all. They appear to remain in 

 their nests. But if there comes a change, and a warm day or two, 

 they are out again ready for business. 



Among the Corvidse we may mention the crow (Corrus Am- 

 ericanus), the bluejay (Cyanurtis Cridatus) and the ubiquitous 

 Canadian jay, whisky jack, moose bird, etc. {Peruoreus dcnn- 

 densis). The crow may, or may not, be considered as one of our 

 winter birds, for although I myself have never seen a specimen 

 here from the final setting in of Avinter until the middle of 

 March, except in the winter of 1896, it is contended by the lum- 

 bermen in general that they stay in the deep woods all winter. 

 (Since writing the above the writer has seen a crow on the ice in 

 front of Chatham, on the river, January 6th, 1899, and he seemed 

 quite lively and happy.) This bird, although it destroys 

 the eggs and young of many of our insect-destroying birds, does 

 not do nearly as much damage to the farmers' crops and chick- 

 ens as he gets the credit of. It is also charged with pulling 

 sprouting corn, and even destroying corn in the milk stage. It 

 really does all of these things, but in comparatively small 

 amounts, while the good it does in destroying noxious insects 

 and vermin far more than counterbalances the evil. In fact, its 

 injurious propensities need hardly be mentioned, supplying only 

 three per cent of its food, even in the United States, according 

 to a report of the Department of Agriculture,and the destruction 

 of birds and eggs formed one per cent of its annual food, where- 

 as grasshoppers. May beetles, cut worms, mice, moles, shrews, 

 rabbits, molluscs, etc., constituted the balance. 



The bluejay is one of our most brilliant birds as regr.rds 



