200 STORIES OF BIRD LIFE 



interesting for some one living in the country where the 

 sapsucker makes his summer home, to watch the bird 

 closely and learn to what extent he really catches insects. 



Unlike Downy the sapsucker never digs into dead wood 

 for the larvae of insects, and if he did his tongue is not 

 long enough to reach into their holes and spear them out 

 of their hiding places; besides, the end of it is more like 

 a brush, and for this reason is better adapted to gathering 

 up sap than to spearing insects. 



For several years a sapsucker (possibly not the same 

 bird always) has each season visited a small balsam grow- 

 ing in a frequented lawn near my home. In the autumn 

 he begins his attack and a few small holes are dug through 

 the bark for sap, but by far the larger amount of his work 

 is done in the spring. This year when the sap first began 

 to rise the sapsucker came out of the woods and com- 

 menced operations on the balsam. He is a wonderful car- 

 penter and the way he made the chips fly with his sharp 

 bill was astonishing. Hour after hour he toiled on, cut- 

 ting scores of holes through the bark to the solid wood be- 

 yond. In a few days hundreds of these little wells had 

 been sunk and the sap rose in them in abundance. 



The bird would cling to the side of the tree, braced by 

 his tail, and drink the sweet juice from the holes^ one after 

 another. As they ran dry, day by day, other holes were 



