SAPSUCKERS AND THEIR GUESTS. 155 



white ash and probably other trees for the pur- 

 pose of taking from them the elaborated sap 

 and in some cases parts of the cambium layer ; 

 that the birds consume the sap in large quan- 

 tities for its own sake and not for insect matter 

 which such sap may chance occasionally to con- 

 tain ; that the sap attracts many insects of various 

 species, a few of which form a considerable part 

 of the food of this bird, but whose capture does 

 not occupy its time to anything like the extent 

 to which sap drinking occupies it ; that different 

 families of these woodpeckers occupy different 

 " orchards," such families consisting of a male, 

 female, and from one to four or five young birds ; 

 that the "orchards" consist of several trees 

 usually only a few rods apart, and that these 

 trees are regularly and constantly visited from 

 sunrise until long after sunset, not only by the 

 woodpeckers themselves, but by numerous para- 

 sitical humming-birds, which are sometimes un- 

 molested, but probably quite as often repelled ; 

 that the forest trees attacked by them generally 

 die, possibly in the second or third year of use ; 

 that the total damage done by them is too in- 

 significant to justify their persecution in well- 

 wooded regions. 



