250 USEFUL BIRDS. 



most of the State wherever trees grow. Its sharp, clear, in- 

 cisive notes are aptly compared by Chapman to the ring of 

 a marble quarrier's chisel. Its only approach to a musical 

 performance is its resonant drumming on a sounding hollow 

 limb or bird box. This habit, which it has in common with 

 other Woodpeckers, seems to be resorted to out of pure 

 exuberance of joy and vigorous life ; it is, with this carpenter 

 bird, a fitting substitute for song. 



The nesting cavity is wrought out with happy labor in some 

 dead limb. The entrance is just large enough to admit the 

 owner by tight squeezing, and the interior is trimmed into 

 graceful curves, rounding at the bottom into a receptacle for 

 the snowy eggs. The birds sometimes carry the chips away, 

 but are often careless of concealment, and let them fall about 

 the foot of the tree. 



Downy is a bird of the old orchard in summer. He prefers 

 to inhabit trees that are neglected by their owners, and 

 assumes the self-appointed guardianship of such trees in the 

 happiest frame of mind imaginable. He does this for the 

 reason that these neglected orchards harbor a host of insects 

 and vermin, in the destruction of which he revels. Under 

 those scales of bark there lurk in early spring the larvre of 

 the codling moth, which pass the winter in their loosely spun 

 cocoons. Downy knows just where to find them. He circles 

 the trunk and limbs, climbs up or comes down backward, 

 and ever and anon he taps and sounds the bark, until the 

 tell-tale vibration given back by the scale above the cocoon 

 corroborates the evidence of his eyes. Every stroke with 

 which he knocks on the door of an insect's retreat sounds 

 the crack of doom. He pierces the bark with his beak, 

 then with his barbed tongue drags forth the insect, and 

 moves on to tap the last summons on the door of the next 

 in line. Now and then an intelligent bird carries the warfare 

 against the apple worm still farther, and pecks the fruit upon 

 the tree ; but, so far as my experience goes, he attacks only 

 wormy fruit, and when he has the worm he leaves the apple. 



Dr. Trimble, in his book entitled "Insects Injurious to 

 Fruits," asserts that he found numerous instances where the 

 bird had penetrated the cocoons of the codling moth. 



