174 FROM BLOMIDON TO SMOKY. 



enlargement and fatty degeneration " of the 

 liver. The most probable cause of this enlarge- 

 ment of the liver, which seems to have been the 

 reason for the death of the three sapsuckers, was 

 an undue proportion of sugar in their diet. In 

 a wild state they would have eaten insects every 

 day and kept their stomachs well filled with the 

 chitinous parts of acid insects. Under restraint 

 they secured fewer and fewer insects, until, dur- 

 ing the last few weeks of their lives, they had 

 practically no solid food of any kind. Two of 

 them lived in captivity exactly fifteen weeks, 

 and the third fourteen weeks. During that time 

 they subsisted mainly upon maple syrup diluted 

 to half its strength with water. This diet was 

 not refused nor disliked by them at the outset ; 

 quite the contrary, it was adopted readily. It 

 did not cause speedy death, nor even indigestion. 

 The birds did not mope and pine ; they enjoyed 

 life, changed their plumage as much as caged 

 birds could be expected to do, and until nearly 

 the time of their deaths manifested no abnormal 

 condition. In fact, they throve upon maple syrup 

 and were in an apparently healthy condition for 

 more than three months. 



SUMMARY. 



From these experiments I draw the following 

 conclusions : (1) that the yellow-breasted wood- 



