Interesting Records of the Work of Woodpeckers^ 



Wm. T. Davis 

 (with plate 6) 



In the Report of the Insects of New Jersey for 1909, by 

 Prof. John B. Smith, there is this note on J. Turner Brakeley: 

 " An enthusiastic amateur and owner of the Lahaway Cranberry 

 plantations, whence I have received a very large number of 

 specimens from him. He is the originator of the plaster cast 

 method of studying underground insects, and has added much to 

 our knowledge of mosquito habits." Mr. Brakeley died in 1915, 

 aged sixty-eight, and an appreciative obituary by his friend 

 Robert P. Dow appeared in the Bulletin of the Brooklyn Ento- 

 mological Society for October of that year. This kindly man 

 resided for the greater part of each year at Lahaway Plantations 

 in Ocean County, New Jersey, a place recorded on the govern- 

 ment topographical map as lying about fifteen miles west of 

 Lakewood. Here he busied himself about the plantation amid 

 very interesting surroundings, looking after the birds, the 

 flowers, the deer, and many other wild things that lived in his 

 woods, which were protected. For exercise he often chopped 

 wood and was careful to preserve anything of interest that he 

 found while so employed. Gradually he accumulated a con- 

 siderable series of specimens of the work of woodpeckers; of 

 bygone tragedies when perhaps on some cold winter day a 

 hungry woodpecker worked for hours on the trunk of an oak, 

 finally drilling a hole to the tunnel of a succulent wood-boring 

 larva that to every outward appearance would seem to have 

 been safe from all enemies in the heart of the tough oak tree. 

 But a woodpecker is a resourceful bird when it comes to larva 

 hunting and Mr. Brakeley's collection shows many interesting 

 efforts on the part of the birds to secure the coveted insects. 



1 Presented at the meeting of the Section of Natural Science April 8, 1916. 



147 



