174 



BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



breeds. It is not often seen away from heavy timber, and is generally 

 to be found in the very tops of the tallest forest trees. I have never 

 secured any of their eggs, but my note book says that I found a pair 

 nesting March 25, 1883, near the top of a large white-oak in edge of 

 wood two miles from Washington. The birds were quite noisy, and 

 while I watched them with my field glass I saw them running in and 

 out of a nice new clean-cut hole in the live wood of the oak. The eggs 

 were probably not laid at that date, but about the nesting there could 

 be no doubt. I intended trying to secure the eggs, but bad weather 

 and other circumstances prevented till the matter was overlooked. I 

 also remember several years ago visiting a farmer friend whom I found 

 engaged in shooting woodpeckers off a mulberry tree that stood in his 

 yard and was full of ripe fruit. He had a dozen or more of the birds 

 lying in a pile under the tree, and at least four or five of them were Red- 

 bellies and the balance Red-heads. I saw and heard three of this species 

 the last day I was in the woods (June 2). I can recognize their ' chuck ' 

 as far as I can hear it." 



The following list made up from reports seventy odd in number 

 received from observers throughout the state, shows that M. carolinus 

 has been observed as a breeder only in Washington county ; and as a 

 migrant it has been reported by but few persons : 



The stomach contents of three of these birds, captured during the 

 winter months in Chester and Delaware counties, Pa., consisted of black 

 beetles, larvae, fragments of acorns, and a few seeds of wild grapes. 



In various sections of Florida where the Red-bellied Woodpeckers are 

 exceedingly numerous ; in fact, by odds, the most abundant of all the 

 woodpeckers, the common names of " Orange Sapsucker " and " Orange- 

 borer " are universally applied to them. On making inquiry of farmers 

 and others, I learned that the names were given because these wood 

 peckers " sucked the sap " of orange trees and fed on oranges. Sup- 

 posing these statements were wrongfully made, I, at first, gave but little 

 attention to them. When, however, I visited W^elaka, Palatka, Volusia, 



* Some fifteen or twenty years ago. according to the Into Judge I,ibhart. this specie* bred Jn Lnnc-nster 

 county.- I?. H. Warren. 



