RED-HEADED WOODPECKER. 29 



destruction.* But let us not condemn the species unheard. 

 They exist; they must therefore be necessary. If their merits 

 and usefulness be found, on examination, to preponderate against 

 their vices, let us avail ourselves of the former, while we guard, 

 as well as we can, against the latter. 



Though this bird occasionally regales himself on fruit, yet 

 his natural, and most useful, food is insects, particularly those 

 numerous and destructive species that penetrate the bark and 

 body of the tree, to deposit their eggs and larvae, the latter of 

 which are well known to make immense havoc. That insects 

 are his natural food, is evident from the construction of his wedge- 

 formed bill, the length, elasticity, and figure of his tongue, and 

 the strength and position of his claws; as well as from his usual 

 habits. In fact, insects form at least two-thirds of his subsistence; 

 and his stomach is scarcely ever found without them. He searches 

 for them with a dexterity and intelligence, I may safely say, 

 more than human; he perceives by the exterior appearance of 

 the bark where they lurk below; when he is dubious, he rat- 

 tles vehemently on the outside with his bill, and his acute ear 

 distinguishes the terrified vermin shrinking within to their in- 

 most retreats, where his pointed and barbed tongue soon reaches 

 them. The masses of bugs, caterpillars, and other larvae, which 

 I have taken from the stomachs of these birds, have often sur- 

 prised me. These larvae, it should be remembered, feed not only 

 on the buds, leaves and blossoms, but on the very vegetable life 

 of the tree, the alburnum, or newly forming bark and wood; 

 the consequence is, that whole branches, and whole trees, de- 

 cay, under the silent ravages of these destructive vermin; wit- 

 ness the late destruction of many hundred acres of pine-trees in 

 the north-eastern parts of South Carolina;! and the thousands^of 

 peach-trees that yearly decay from the same cause. Will any 



* Kalm. 



f In one place, on a tract of two thousand acres of pine land, on the Sampit 

 river, near Georgetown, at least ninety trees in every hundred were destroyed 

 by this pernicious insect, a small, black, winged bug 1 , resembling the weavel, 

 but somewhat longer. 



