56 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



bird, and is equally at home in the boreal regions or in semitropical Florida. 

 Its breeding range is an extensive one and cori-esponds with its geographical 

 distribution. Although of a more or less roving disposition in winter, in certain 

 localities throughout its range, caused probablj' by abundance or lack of food, 

 it can not be considered as a strictly migratory bird, as it appears to be a resident 

 even in winter in northern Alaska, a fact that is well attested from the numerous 

 specimens taken there at that season and now in the United States National 

 Museum collection. 



I notice that the under parts of all the Alaskan specimens and others from 

 the far north are much lighter colored than birds from the southern parts of 

 its range, they also generally average somewhat larger, and if Dryobates villosus 

 leucomelas is considered a good race, our northern Downy Woodpecker would 

 appear to me to be equally well entitled to subspecitic rank. I took a single 

 specimen of this northern form, a male, near Fort Custer, Montana, on January 

 28, 1885, which is identical with the birds found in Alaska, probably a straggler 

 from the far north. I have also seen a perfectly typical specimen of this 

 species, a female, taken by Mr. S. F. Rathbun, near Seattle, Washington, on 

 February 20, 1892. 



The Downy Woodpecker is more sociable and confiding in man than the 

 Hairy Woodpecker; it likes to take up its home in the vicinity of human habi- 

 tations, and I believe throughout the eastern United States it is more abundant 

 than its larger relative. Unfortunately, it is also considered a Sapsucker, and 

 many of these exceedingly useful little Woodpeckers are killed yearly through 

 lamentable ignorance, under the supposition that they injure the fruit trees 

 by boring in the bark, while in fact they render the horticulturist inestimable 

 service by ridding his orchard of innumerable injurious insects, their eggs and 

 larvae, and few of our native birds deserve our good will more than the little 

 Downy Woodpecker. The most stringent protection is none too good for it. It 

 is one of the most industrious of birds, is always at work hunting for food, and 

 the number of injurious beetles and their larvse, caterpillars, etc., destroyed by 

 a single bird in the course of a season must be enormous. Aside from such a 

 diet, it feeds also on ants and their larvae, spiders and their eggs, and more rarely 

 on small grains, berries, and nuts. It does not object to raw meat, and if a piece 

 is hung up in winter where it can readily get at it, it will pay it regular visits as 

 long as it lasts. It is partial to rather open and cultivated country, interspersed 

 here and there with small woods and orchards; and to the scattering trees and 

 shrubbery of river and creek bottoms, the shade trees along country roads, and 

 along the edges of clearings, and it is even at home in villages. It especially 

 loves to feed in orchards, and also in alders and white birch trees. It begins 

 near the roots and carefully scans every cranny as it hops along, looking now 

 on one side and then on the other, and no lurking insect seems to escape its sharp 

 eye. It is less often met with in the more extensive forests, excepting along 

 water courses, and it does not seem to care much for burnt tracts, which have so 

 much attraction for the Hairy and other Woodpeckers. Although not particu- 

 larly sociable to its own kind, it loves to be in company with other smaller insect- 



