THE APPLE MOIH. 11J 



another, and another, until the right sound is communicated to that wonderful 

 ear. 



Here is evidence enough of the usefulness of this bird to entitle it to exemption 

 papers for ever. Reader, look carefully at the head, as represented in Fig. 7 of this 

 Plate. Do not call that bird " Sapsucker." That name will create a prejudice with 

 some. The whole tribe of Woodpeckers labor under a prejudice in some neigh- 

 borhoods. Some will eat cherries, and some are supposed to be fond of grapes. But 

 the chief food of all of them is insects, and many of those insects are our worst ene- 

 mies. It will be well to let all the Woodpeckers have their own way, but by all 

 means protect the Downy. 



Fig. 8, is the SPHYRAFRICUS VARIUS of Baird ; Picus varius of Wilson, Cassin, 

 and Audubon. 



YELLOW-BELLIED WOODPECKER. Sp. Ch. Fourth quill, longest ; third, a little 

 shorter ; first, considerably shorter. General color above, black, much variegated 

 with white. Feathers of the back and rump brownish-white, spotted with black. 

 Crown, scarlet, bordered by black on the sides of the head and nape. A streak from 

 above the eye, and another from the bristle of trie bill, passing below the eye and 

 into the yellowish of the belly, and a stripe along the edges of the wing coverts, 

 white. A triangular broad patch of scarlet on the chin, bordered on each side by 

 black stripes from the lower mandibles, which meet behind and extend into a large 

 quadrate spot on the breast ; rest of under part yellowish-white, streaked on the sides 

 with black. Inner web of tail feather white, spotted with black. Outer feathers 

 black, edged and spotted with white. Length, 8.25 inches : wing about 4.75 ; tail, 

 330. Female with the red of the throat replaced by white. Young male without 

 black on the breast, or red on the top of the head. 



Hob. Atlantic Ocean to the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains ; Green- 

 land. 



Oct. 6. Went to the orchard of a friend in the outskirts of the city, and found a 

 Sapsucker (or, as it should be called, a Yellow-bellied Woodpecker) at work on one 

 of the Apple trees. It had made almost three hundred marks (see Plate 10, Fig. 6). 

 Some were new and others old ones drilled out. This was in the forenoon. I watched 

 it about half an hour. I returned in the afternoon. The same kind of bird was 

 on the same Apple tree, and busily at work pecking holes. I watched for about an 

 hour, sometimes approaching so near that it would fly a short distance and watch me 

 closely till I would go thirty or forty yards from it, when it would at once return and 



