THE WOODPECKER. 69 



Ground Woodpecker (Colaptes campestris) of the South 

 American Pampas has gladly turned his attention to trees 

 now that they have been planted on his native plains. In 

 fact, his enthusiastic carpentering; performed on the as yet 

 none too luxuriant plantations has rendered him rather an 

 economic pest, unlike the majority of the family. For 

 Woodpeckers are, generally speaking, among the most 

 useful of birds, attacking the destructive woodboring 

 insects which few other species can reach, and serving as 

 a wholesome check on the industrious ant, which in the 

 East finds so many ways of exercising its ingenuity to 

 our discomfort. 



