iSgi.] BoLLES 071 the YeUoiv-bellied Woodpecker. ^57 



or Sapsuckei" is the most numerous. It may fairly be said to be 

 abundant in that district. I base this statement upon my daily 

 count of bii"ds seen between April and the middle of October in 

 the years 1S89 and 1S90. I frequently record seeing from seven 

 to ten of these birds in a day. Their favorite haunts are mixed 

 growths of young birch, larch, hemlock, maple and white ash 

 bordering water or wet lands. 



My attention has been drawn to the Yellow-bellied Woodpeck- 

 ers on two accounts : — their quickness to observe and persistence 

 in scolding my tame Owls when in the woods; and their destruc- 

 tion of certain forest trees. 



Last summer I was led to spend a considerable time in close 

 study of these Woodpeckers and their feeding habits by the pecu- 

 liar relations which I noticed as seeming to exist between them 

 and Hummingbirds. My obsen^ations were given point by my 

 i-ecollection of the difterence of opinion among ornithologists re- 

 garding the diet of these Woodpeckers and their motive for tap- 

 ping sap-yielding trees. I had heard it said that their sole reason 

 for drawing the sap was to attract insects which they then fed 

 upon. I had also heard that they ate the tender cambium layer 

 which intervenes between the bark and inner wood of trees. I knew 

 well that the birds were insect-eaters for I had often seen them fl}' 

 into the air with the grace of a Tyrant Flycatcher or Cedarliird 

 and capture insects on the wing. 



On July 19, 1S90 while watching a group of birds gathered in 

 the woods around my tame Owl, Puffy, two Yellow-belliedWood- 

 peckers and a Hummingbird attracted my attention. The Wood, 

 peckers were scolding the Owl, when the Hummingbird tlarted 

 towards one of them, hummed before it, rushed at the other, and 

 then seeing the Owl flew at him squeaking furiously. Then it 

 flew back to the first Sapsucker and perched near it. On the 3ist 

 I returned to the spot and found near by a Sapsucker's 'or- 

 chard' of about a dozen canoe birches and red maples, most of 

 which were dead, some decayed and fallen. The tree most i^e- 

 cently tapped was a red maple about forty feet high and two feet 

 through at the butt. The drills made by the Woodpeckers began 

 eighteen feet from the ground and formed a girdle entirely around 

 the trunk. This girdle contained over 800 punctures and was 

 about three feet in height. In places the punctures or drills had 

 run together causing the bark to gape and show dry wood within. 

 2 



