﻿296 Canadian Record of Science. 



and enlarged by colonies of ants, these ants in turn are 

 drawn out and eaten. 



Two of the best known woodpeckers, the hairy wood- 

 pecker {Drydhates villosus) and the downy woodpecker 

 {D. puhescens), including their races, range over the greater 

 part of the United States, and for the most part remain 

 throughout the year in their usual haunts. They differ 

 chiefly in size, for their colors are practically the same, 

 and the males, like other woodpeckers, are distinguished 

 by a scarlet patch on the head. 



An examination of many stomachs of these two birds 

 shows that from two-thirds to three-fourths of the food 

 consists of insects, chiefly noxious. Wood-boring beetles, 

 both adults and larvai, are conspicuous, and with them are 

 associated many caterpillars, mostly species that burrow 

 into trees. Next in importance are the ants that live in 

 decaying wood, all of which are sought by woodpeckers 

 and eaten in great quantities. Many ants are particularly 

 harmful to timber, for if they find a small spot of decay in 

 the vacant burrow of some wood-borer, they enlarge the 

 hole, and as their colony is always on the increase, 

 continue to eat away the wood until the whole trunk 

 is honeycombed. Moreover, these insects are not acces- 

 sible to other birds, and could pursue their career of 

 destruction unmolested were it not that the woodpeckers, 

 with beaks and tongues especially fitted for such work, 

 dig out and devour them. It is thus evident that 

 woodpeckers are great conservators of forests. To them, 

 more than to any other agency, we owe the preservation 

 of timber from hordes of destructive insects. 



One of the larger woodpeckers familiar to everyone 

 is the flicker, or golden-winged woodpecker (Colaptes 

 aurahcs), which is generally distributed throughout the 

 United States from the Atlantic Coast to the Eocky 

 Mountains. It is there replaced by the red-shafted 

 flicker {C. cafcr^, which extends westward to the Pacifi 



