Il8 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO FRUIT*. 



resume the pecking work. If I were in sight it would keep on the opposite side of 

 the limb, occasionally peeping round cautiously to see if I was coming nearer. 

 Sometimes, during the intervals of these peeps, I would quietly approach so closely 

 that the moment it saw me it would fly away, but to return again as soon as I had 

 retired to a proper distance. After bo-peeping till I had no more time to spare, I 

 shot this poor bird, expecting to find positive evidence in the stomach of what it 

 made these holes for and found two seeds or pits (of which one and half the other 

 are represented by Fig. 9, Plate 10), with the purple skins of the same fruit, seven small 

 ants, and one insect of the chinch bug kind about the size of those found in the beds 

 of some taverns. But of bark or sap there was not even a trace. 



Later in the day I shot another of the same species of bird in an old orchard out 

 of town. The stomach of this one contained the pulp of an apple and one ant- 

 nothing else. This one was on the upper part of an Apple tree, and was not pecking 

 or sounding. The investigation of this bird so far is Unsatisfactory. I have seen no 

 evidence yet that these holes are made in search of food. Ants are certainly found 

 sometimes about these holes, and apparently in pursuit of the sap that exudes from 

 them ; but the idea suggested by some, that the birds make them to attract these ants 

 by such tempting baits, is a palpable exaggeration of the reasoning power of this 

 bird. 



From what I have seen to-day, as well as from former observations, and from the 

 testimony of several careful observers among farmers of my acquaintance, I am led to 

 believe' that Baird is mistaken in calling the preceding bird the Downy Wood- 

 pecker a Sapsucker. Wilson evidently believes the same thing, although he does 

 not say so in express words. The bird that makes these parallel holes, as shown at 

 Fig. 6, Plate 10, has a bad reputation, and I am anxious to relieve my little friend 

 that finds the Apple Worm, from all charges that will bring him into trouble. I believe 

 that this bird, Fig. 8, Plate 10, is the only one that makes such holes. The Downy 

 Woodpecker, Fig. 7, Plate 10, makes many holes in Apple and Pear trees also, but 

 not in this regular manner. The one is in search of the larvte of the Apple Moth 

 under the dry scales of the bark ; the other seeks I don't know what, in the green bark 

 itself. 



These parallel rows are often very numerous. The trunks and larger branches 

 will often be seen covered with them. The rows will be almost adjoining for many 

 feet, and the holes in the rows as near each other as represented in Fig. 6 in this Plate, 

 and running all round the tree. In old orchards where trees have been grafted high 

 up, these holes may be sometimes seen in the stock and not in die graft, and some- 

 times in the graft and not in the stock. Rows of trees of one kind of fruit will be 



