Merriam on Birds of Lcivis County, New York. 5 



nnd vegetable) and drink in abundance for an entire day ; and a 

 single tree, favorably situated, may suffice for a whole season ! 



To explain the origin of this habit, at first thought so wonderful, 

 is not difficult when we bear in mind the fact that all Woodpeckers 

 are "fitted by nature" for drilling holes in trees. Now let us sup- 

 liose that one of the ancestors of this species, while pounding off a 

 bit of dead bark from an apple-tree in search for the insects that 

 might lurk beneath it, should, by chance, have struck his bill into 

 nn adjoining strip of sound bark. Seeing the crystal drops of sap 

 slowly issuing from the wounded spot, he would naturally enough 

 liave tasted it, and, finding it agreeable to his palate, would be led 

 to repeat the experiment. A little of the inner bark, partaking of 

 the same flavor, might also be swallowed. Then, after the lapse of a 

 few hours (during which digestion would be completed and the ap- 

 petite again become manifest), is it strange that he should return 

 to the spot where, a short time before, his hunger had been so 

 easily satisfied ? Here he would find himself surrounded by a 

 swarm of insects, feeding upon the sap which had exuded during his 

 absence, and from among their numbers an unexpected repast would 

 be soon finished. Now, it is not at all likely that the bird would 

 forgot this day's experience, but, on the contrary, he would profit 

 by it, and on the morrow, and day by day thereafter, would repeat 

 the experiment, at first upon the same tree, and afterwards upon 

 others of the same kind, till the habit would become firmly estab- 

 lished. 



Though the bird's attention was first attracted by the oozing sap, 

 and his first return to the spot was doubtless due to his recollection 

 of its agreeable flavor, yet I cannot but believe that the insects 

 which he then found there served to keep iip his interest in the 

 place much more than the few drops of fluid swallowed beforehand, 

 just to prepare the alimentary tract, as it were, for the solid food 

 to come, — as we take a glass of Congress-water a half-hour before 

 breakfast. Hence it is easy to see how a chance stroke of the bill 

 sufficed to establish a habit by which the Yellow-bellied Woodpecker 

 is always enabled, with a minimum amount of labor, to obtain an 

 unlimited supply of the food most pleasing to its taste. And yet 

 some people, who ought to know better, would still call this another 

 example of " that curious instinct " which leads birds and other 

 animals to do those things which are best adapted to their needs. 

 Before the commencement of the breeding-season thely are pre- 



