A QUARTET OF WOODLAND DRUMMERS 193 



woodpeckers, and always appears to be busy. We may 

 often see him climbing up the huge trunk of some old oak 

 tree, pausing a second here and there to rap on the bark 

 with his bill to learn if all is solid wood within. Again he 

 will pause as the peculiar sound given back from his tap 

 indicates that an insect is lurking within. Then the re- 

 sounding blows of his little pickaxe fall thick and fast, 

 sending the chips in every direction. In vain does the 

 plump larva feasting on the sap of the tree retreat into 

 its hole. A gleam of daylight shoots into the burrow, and 

 an instant later the spear-like tongue of the woodpecker 

 has impaled its victim and jerked it forth. Then on 

 up the tree Downy goes, perhaps without further in- 

 cident until well among the limbs, when suddenly he 

 flies to a neighboring tree, dropping as he does so to 

 a point near its base, and begins to ascend this trunk 

 as he did the one before. 



He is the natural watchman of our fruit trees. He 

 hunts out the moth's eggs laid in the crack of the 

 bark and eats them, thus preventing a brood of cater- 

 pillars from hatching and eating the leaves of the 

 tree. He finds the eggs of the beetle and eats them also, 

 before they can hatch out into the wood-boring larvaB, 

 which sometimes girdle and kill the limbs. 



Thus Downy labors on, day by day, through the year, 



