46 LIFJi HISTOKIES OF NOETH AMEEIOAN BIRDS. 



i6. Dryobates villosus (Linn^us). 



HAIRY WOODPECKER. 



Picus villosus LinNjEUS, Systenia Naturje, ed. 12, I, 1766, 175. 

 D[ryol)ates] villosus Oabanis, Museum Heiueauum, IV, June 15, 1863,66. 

 (B 74, part; C 298, part; R 360; 438, part; U 393.) 



Geogkaphical range: Eastern North America; north in the southern provinces of 

 the Dominion of Canada to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, southern Quebec, Ontario, and 

 southern Manitoba; south through the United States, excepting the South Atlantic and 

 Gulf States; west to eastern Montana and Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, the Indian Terri- 

 tory, and eastern Texas. Accidental in England.^ 



Tlie breeding range of the Hairy Woodpecker, also known as "Big Sap- 

 sucker" and "Big Guinea Woodpecker," is coextensive with its geographical 

 range, and it is generally a constant resident wherever found. It is fairly 

 common through the wooded regions of our Northern and Middle States, and 

 in winter is occasionally found in some of the Southern States — Louisiana, for 

 instance. It is a resident in the mountainous portions of North Carolina, while 

 in the lowlands it is replaced by the smaller southern race, Dryobates villosus 

 auduhoni. It is a hardy bird, and intense cold does not appear to affect it much. 

 As a rule it is rather unsocial, and, unless followed by their young, more than 

 a pair are rarely seen together. It does not live in harmony with smaller 

 species of its own kind, and drives them away, Avhen they encroach on its 

 feeding grounds, being exceedingly greedy in disposition and always hungry. 

 It is partial to timbered river bottoms, the outskirts of forests, and occasionally 

 it makes its home in old orchards and in rather open, cultivated country, inter- 

 spersed here and there with isolated clumps of trees; it is also found in the 

 midst of extended forest regions. 



The Hairy Woodpecker, like most of its relatives, is an exceedingly beneficial 

 and useful bird, which rids our orchards and forests of innmnerable injurious 

 larva3, like those of the Boring Beetles, Buprestidce, which burrow in the wood 

 and between the bark and trunk of trees. It never attacks a sound tree. 

 Although commonly known as Sapsucker, this name is very inappropriate; it is 

 not in search of sap, but of such grubs as are found only in decaying wood; 

 nevertheless it is exceedingly difficult to make the average farmer believe this, 

 and in winter, when these birds are more often seen about the vicinity of dwell- 

 ings and the neighboring orchards than at other seasons of the year, many are 

 shot under the erroneous belief that they injure the very trees they are doing 

 their best to protect. In central New York, and undoubtedly in other sections 

 as well, where a few decades ago one could see some of the finest apple orchards 

 to be found anywhere, you may look in vain for them now. Nearly every tree 



'Mr. E.W. Nelson, in his report upon the Natural History Collections made in Alaska in tlie years 

 1877-1881, p. 145, records this species as occurring in British Columbia and thence north along the south- 

 eastern coast of Alaska. I have not been aljle to find any specimens collected by him in the U. S. National 

 Museum collections and simply mention this record. 



