SAPSUCKERS. 177 



return. His dogship was ready to trust and obey orders 

 wherever given. Could a soldier have done better? 



Sapsuckers. 



Editoi of Nature Study : 



I was pleased to find, in the December number of Nature 

 Study, that investigation by admitted authority had settled 

 the fact that at least one of the woodpeckers really taps trees 

 to get the sap to drink. This fact has long and persistently 

 been disputed by people who were credited with close observation 

 and accuracy of statement. I have had apple trees killed by being 

 girdled by these birds, and have watched them day after day while 

 working near them in the orchard, and seen them go from one hole 

 to another and drink out the sap, and when the holes dried up, drill 

 a new row. There are few trees in our forests exempt from their 

 attacks, and the marks of their work are often seen in logs cut for 

 lumber, where the injury was not enough to kill the tree. It is a 

 noticeable fact in forests of large hemlocks that nearly all of the trees 

 have lost their tops, and close examination will, in most cases, show 

 the work of these birds where the break occured. 



The writer referred to plainly states that another species drinks 

 the sap from the holes, and it would be no more surprising than some 

 revolutions in what had been accepted as " science " if it should be 

 learned that the original injury is not all done by one species. 



I am glad the wedge has been started. Solon Robinson, in his 

 Facts for Farmers, solemnly declares that crows do not pull corn, 

 but only disturb it while digging for insects. We have writers of 

 later date who would have us believe that certain hawks will refuse 

 a chicken and catch a squirrel or a partridge. 



If the study of nature, in practice or in publication, results in 

 showing how many things are " known " that are not so, the ground 

 will be cleared for the acquirement of actual facts. One trip to the 

 forest, or one visit of a bird to the orchard does not furnish data suf- 

 ficient for a declaration of the usual habits of the bird or animal 

 under consideration. 



O. H. Leavitt. 

 Manchester, N. H., Jan. 20. 



