FRIEND DOWNY 29 



usually a dead branch suitable to nest in, Downy 

 asks no more. Summer and winter he works on 

 our orchards. At sunrise he begins, and he 

 patrols the branches till sunset. He taps on the 

 trunks to see whether he can hear any rascally 

 borers inside. He inspects every tree carefully 

 in a thorough and systematic way, beginning low 

 down and following up with a peek into every 

 crevice and a tap upon every spot that looks sus- 

 picious. If he sees anything which ought not to 

 be there, he removes it at once. 



A moth had laid her eggs in a crack in the 

 bark, expecting to hatch out a fine brood of 

 caterpillars : but Downy ate them all, thus saving 

 a whole branch from being overrun with cater- 

 pillars and left fruitless, leafless, and dying. A 

 beetle had just deposited her eggs here. Downy 

 saw her, and took not only the eggs but the beetle 

 herself. Those eggs would have hatched into 

 boring larvae, which would have girdled and killed 

 some of the branches, or have burrowed under 

 the bark, causing it to fall off, or have bored 

 into the wood and, perhaps, have killed the tree. 

 Nor is the full-grown borer exempt. Downy 

 hears him, pecks a few strokes, and harpoons 

 him with unerring aim. When Downy has 

 made an arrest in this way, the prisoner does 

 not escape from the police. Here is a colony 



