82 The Food of Some British Wild Birds. 



The extent to which these cause injury varies according to local 

 and other circumstances. The actual amount of damage, however, 

 seldom assumes serious proportions. The injury caused by finches 

 is mainly to fruits and seeds, sometimes they prove very destructive 

 to sowings ; at the same time, it must be remembered that for part 

 of the year their food consists of weed-seeds and insects. 



The crossbills are mainly injurious to the cones of Soote pine 

 and fpruce, as are the nutcracker and jay, only to a much greater 

 extent. 



Much diversity of opinion exists as to the precise economic 

 status of the woodpeckers. On the one hand they are described as 

 destructive from the fact that they peck holes in various species of 

 trees, they wound saplings, eat the seeds of numerous forest trees, 

 and at times girdle trees. 



On the other hand, they destroy large numbers of some of the 

 worst forest insects known, e.g., Pissodes pini, Linn., and Pissodes 

 notatus, Fabr. ; Hylastes ater, Pk., the Black Pine Beetle; Myelo- 

 philus piniperada, Linn., the Pine Bark Beetle, also the larvae of 

 various other beetles, moths, sawflies, etc. 



Fisher (45, p. 143) writes: " Opinions regarding the utility 

 or otherwise of woodpeckers from a forestry point of view have varied 

 from time to time. Towards the end of the eighteenth century they 

 were considered! hurtful by pecking holes into trees which were 

 sometimes sound ones. 



" In Beckman's " Handbuch der Jagdwissenschaft," published 

 at Nuremberg in 1802, this opinion was adopted, and in consequence 

 a reward of 2d. per head was offered in Germany for their destruc- 

 tion. Bechstein was the first, in 1802, to consider them useful, and 

 Walther in 1803 ; also Gloger about 1860. Foresters then went to 

 the other extreme, considering woodpeckers as extremely active in 

 destroying insects, and ignoring their propensity for making holes in 

 trees. Altum in his " Forst-zoologie " reverted to the former 

 opinion, stating that woodpeckers were practically useless against 

 dangerous bark-beetles-, but attacked the larger and less important 

 longicorn-beetles, and that they themselves did considerable damage 

 to trees. 



" Altum wished, however, to protect woodpeckers on aesthetic 

 grounds, because they enliven the forest and please the eye. Judeich 

 follows Altum's views to a certain extent. Konig, Db'bner, Vogt, 

 the brothers Miiller, Taschenberg, Borggreve, Nb'rdlinger, and 

 others consider that the utility of woodpeckers outweighs the harm 

 they may do, and Hess expresses himself as of the same opinion, 

 from the most recent observations on the subject." 



