"Sgi-l BollilS oil the ril/ozv-hcllicd Woodpecker, 260 



my power or knowledge to dcleriniiie accurately the composition 

 of this hug-hash." 



Mr. Samuel H. Scudder was able to speak with more confi- 

 dence of the stomachs which I sent to him. Under date of 

 December 19 he said: "The insects in the dillerent stomachs are 

 in all cases almost exclusively composed of the harder chitin- 

 ous parts of ants In a cursory examination I find little else, 

 though one f)r two beetles are represented and No. 4 must have 

 swallowed an entire wasp of the largest size, his head and 

 wings attesting thereto. If the birds were very different in 

 habit, or presumably in food, a comparison of the kinds of ants 

 might lead to the detection of some peculiarities. A number of 

 species are represented." 



It is worthy of note that the structure of the tongue of this 

 species is somewhat unlike that of the tongues of other Wood- 

 peckers. In form it is not adapted to use as a dart for securing 

 insects and its fringed edges have suggested to biologists who 

 were not observers of the bird's habits, that sap might, as in the 

 cases of species with similar apparatus, form an important por- 

 tion of its food. The following extract from a lettei written to 

 me by Mr. W. F. Ganong, Instructor in Botany at Harvard 

 University, gives a clear history of the progress of sap in its ascent 

 and descent. 



''It is now thought by botanists that the elaborated sap from 

 the leaves is transferred down the stem through the soft bast 

 cells of the inner bark, just outside of the cambium la\er. It 

 hence passes to the medullary rays, where it is stored up to last 

 over the winter in the form of starch chiefly. Some of it is stored 

 also in the wood cells of the young wood — but none I believe in 

 the ducts or fibres or main masses of the wood itself. In the 

 latter there is a current of crude sap from the roots flowing up, 

 but 1 do not think any botanist thinks that the elaborated sap flows 

 down by the same path. Hence if the Woodpecker in July or 

 /Vugust penetrates the zuood, he would get only crude sap from 

 the ordinary wood tissue, but he might get elaborated sap from 

 the medullary rays or some of the smaller wood cells — much more 

 of the former {i.e. unelaborated) than of the latter (/. e. elabo- 

 rated), I should say. If he penetrates to the cambium only he 

 would get elaborated sap (which is being transformed into tissue), 

 and if he penetrated the soft inner bark only he certainly would 



