44 THE WOODPECKERS 



So much we have learned about the sapsuck- 

 er's habits, and now we should like to know why 

 his work is harmful, and why that of the other 

 woodpeckers is not. It is not because he drinks 

 the sap. All the sap he could eat or waste 

 would not harm the tree, if allowed to run out 

 of a few holes. Think how many gallons the 

 sugar-makers drain out of a single tree without 

 killing the tree. But the sugar-maker takes the 

 sap in the spring, when the crude sap is mount- 

 ing up in the tree, while the sapsucker does not 

 begin his work till midsummer or autumn, when 

 the tree is sending down its elaborated sap to 

 feed the trunk and make it grow. This ac- 

 counts for the woodpecker's digging his pits 

 above the lines of holes already in the tree. 

 The loss of this elaborated sap is a greater in- 

 jury than the waste of a far larger quantity of 

 crude sap, so that on the season of the year 

 when the sapsucker digs his holes depends in 

 large measure the amount of damage he does. 

 The injury that he does to the wood itself is 

 trivial. He is not a woodpecker except at time 

 of nesting, and most woodpeckers prefer to build 

 in a dead or dying branch, where their work 

 does no hurt. But we know very well that a 

 tree may be a wreck, riven from top to bottom 

 by lightning, split open to the heart by the tern- 



