78 AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



about with food for the clamoring nestlings. The food was probably wood 

 worms, for they secured it from a piece of burnt woods, near by. 



In boring the bark of the alder bushes the mother bird always worked up- 

 ward. I did not see her extending the perforated space from below. Per- 

 haps in this she had no special purpose. But, if, as it occurred to me, her 

 object was to secure the overflow of sap from the newly drilled holes by 

 making them in such a position that it would run into the dried up cells 

 below, we have another evidence of something very near to reasoning in- 

 stinct in our feathered friends. Had the new sap cups been drilled below 

 the old ones, the overflow of sap would have run down the bark, and have 

 been lost to the young birds upon their return to the tree. 



I was also interested in seeing that the hummingbirds and white-breast- 

 ed nuthatches helped themselves to the food which the mother bird had so 

 laboriously provided for her own progeny. The hummingbirds, especially, 

 were attentive to the flow of the sap. Their well known fondness for sugar 

 explains this predilection. In this sugar-making country, birds, as well as 

 men, have learned the art of drawing sweetness from the trees. On several 

 occasions I have seen sapsuckers tapping on the sugar-maker's sap buckets 

 as they hung on the maple trees. The first time that I ever heard this 

 gave me quite a start, as the sharp blows of the bird's bill on the tin pail 

 suddenly disturbed the stillness of the forest. Probably they were gathering 

 the grains of sugar formed on the buckets by the evaporation of the sap. 



With the nuthatches and hummingbirds, ants, flies and butterflies stealing 

 their food; with downy woodpeckers to be kept away; with a strange look- 

 ing box with a long trailing tube leading to a man on a chair, and its large 

 glass eye staring at them as they take their morning meal, is it not a wonder 

 that the young sapsiickers are able to preserve that look of complacent in- 

 difference and kindly good nature which the camera has reproduced in the 

 picture ? 



Circular of Inquiry with reference to the Present Status of the English 

 Sparrow Problem in America. 



1. Are you familiar with Bulletin No. 1,- The English Sparrow in 

 America, published by the Agricultural Department in 1889; and do you 

 agree with the facts there presented and with its conclusions ? 



2. Is the English Sparrow present in your locality? How numerous? 

 Are they increasing or decreasing in numbers ? 



3. What is being done to exterminate them? Please outline methods 

 which you deem effective. 



4. What influence have you observed the English Sparrow to have upon 

 native birds ? 



