DOWNY WOODPECKER (Dryobates 

 pubescens). 



Length, 6 inches. Our smallest woodpecker; 

 spotted with black and white. Dark bars on 

 the outer tail feathers distinguish it from the 

 similarly colored but larger hairy woodpecker. 



Range: Resident in the United States and 

 the forested parts of Canada and Alaska. 



Habits and economic status: This wood- 

 pecker is commonly distributed, living in 

 woodland tracts, orcnards, and gardens. The 

 bird has several characteristic notes, and, like 

 the hairy woodpecker, is fond of beating on a 

 dry resonant tree branch a tattoo which to 

 appreciative ears has the quality of woodland 

 music. In a hole excavated in a dead branch 

 the downy woodpecker lays foiu: to six eggs. 

 This and the hairy woodpecker are among our 

 most valuable allies, their food consisting of 

 some of the worst foes of orchard and wood- 

 land, which the woodpeckers are especiallv 

 equipped to dig out of dead and living wood. 

 In the examination of 723 stomachs of this bird, 



animal food, mostly insects, was found to constitute 76 per cent of the diet and 

 vegetable matter 24 per cent. The animal food consists largely of beetles that 

 bore into timber or burrow under the bark. Caterpillars amount to 16 per cent 

 of the food and include many especially harmful species. Grasshopper eggs 

 are freely eaten. The vegetable food of the downy woodpecker consists of 

 email fruit and seeds, mostly of wild species. It (ustributes seeds of poison 

 ivy, or poison oak, which is about the only fault of this ver>' useful bird. (See 

 Biol. Survey Bui. 37, pp. 17-22.) 



YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO (Coccyzus americanus). 



Length, about 12 inches. The yellow lower part of the bill distinguishes this 

 bird from its near relative, the black-billed cuckoo. 



Range: Breeds generally in the United States and southern Canada; winters 

 in South America. 



Habita and economic status: This bird lives 

 on the edges of woodland, in groves, orchards, 

 parks, and even in shaded village streets. It 

 is sometimes known as rain crow, because its 

 very characteristic notes are supposed to fore- 

 tell rain. The cuckoo has sly, furtive ways as 

 it moves among the bushes or flits from tree to 

 tree, and is much more often seen than heard. 

 Unlike its European relative, it does not lay its 

 eggs in other birds' nests, but builds a neet of 

 its own. This is, however, a rather crude and 

 shabby affair — hardly more than a platform of 

 twigs sufficient to hold the greenish eggs. The 

 cuckoo is extremely useful because of its 

 insectivorous habits, especially as it shows a 

 marked preference for the hairy caterpillars, 

 which few birds eat. One stomach that was 

 examined contained 250 American tent cater- 

 pillars; another, 217 fall webworms. In places 

 where tent caterpillars are abundant they seem 

 to constitute a large portion of the food of this 

 and the black-billed cuckoo. 



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