396 RELATIONS OF BIRDS TO AGRICULTURE 



Downy Woodpecker (Plate 3, Fig. 9). This woodpecker is a 

 true benefactor, in that its food consists almost entirely of inju- 

 rious insects. It is with us both winter and summer. It is the 

 smallest of our woodpeckers, being only six and four-fifths inches 

 long. It is black above, but has a scarlet band on the back of the 

 neck, and has white on the middle of the back. The under parts 

 are white. The central feathers of the tail are black, the outer 

 ones white, with black markings. The wings are black, spotted 



FIG. 389. Belted kingfisher. (After Fuertes.) 



with white. The female lacks the scarlet patch on the back of 

 the neck. It nests in holes in trees. 



This bird is often seen in winter in company with nut-hatches, 

 chickadees, and brown creepers. What little vegetable food it 

 eats consists of seeds of poison ivy, sumach and similar shrubs. 

 Seventeen examined specimens had eaten forty insect larvae, 

 twenty wood-boring grubs, three caterpillars, seven ants, four 

 beetles, a chrysalid, one hundred and ten small bugs, a spider, 



