No. 3.3 Reprints and Miscellaneous Notes. 165 



of Upshur County, W. Va., says that the same species feeds on 

 cherries, strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries, and that its 

 depredations are sometimes serious, According to Mr. Witmer 

 Stone, of Germantown, Pa., Red-headed Woodpeckers have been 

 observed to strip a blackberry patch of all of its fruit. Mr. W. B. 

 McDaniel, of Decatur County, Ga., also reports that the Sap-sucker 

 and Redhead eat grapes and cherries, the loss being sometimes con- 

 siderable. These examples show the nature of the evidence contribu- 

 ted by eye-witnesses, the accuracy of whose observations there is no 

 reason to doubt. That the stomach examinations do not reveal more 

 damaging points against the species is not surprising, for a person 

 seeing a bird eating his choice fruit, or in some other way inflicting 

 damage, is more impressed by it than by the sight oi a hundred of 

 the same species quietly pursuing their ordinary vocations. Thus an 

 occasional act is taken as a characteristic habit. 



One hundred and one stomachs of the Redhead were examined 

 from specimens collected throughout the year, although the bird is 

 not generally abundant in the Northern States during the winter 

 months. The specimens were taken in 20 States, the District of 

 Columbia and Canada, and are fairly well distributed over the whole 

 region east of the Rocky Mountains. The contents of the stomachs 

 consisted of animal matter, 50 per cent.; vegetable matter, 47 per cent. ; 

 mineral matter, 3 per cent. The animal and vegetable elements are 

 nearly balanced, and the mineral element is larger than in any except 

 the Flicker. The insects consist of ants, wasps, beetles, bugs, grass- 

 hoppers, crickets, moths, and caterpillars. Spiders and myriapods 

 also were found. Ants amounted to about 11 per cent, of the whole 

 food, which is the smallest showing of any of the seven species under 

 consideration, and is in harmony with the habits of the bird, which 

 collects its food upon exposed surfaces where ants do not often occur. 

 Beetle remains formed nearly one-third of all food, the highest record 

 of any one of the seven woodpeckers. The families represented were 

 those of the common May beetle {Lachnosterna) which was found in 

 several stomachs, the predaceous ground beetles, tiger beetles, 

 weevils, and a few others. Among the May beetle family is a rather 

 large, brilliant green beetle, known to entomologists as Allorhina 

 nitiday but commonly called by the less dignified name of 'June bug.' 

 It is very common during the early summer in the Middle and South- 

 ern States but less so at the North. This insect was found in 1 1 

 stomachs, and 5 individuals were identified in a single stomach, which 

 would seem an enormous meal for a bird of this size. Another large 

 beetle eaten by this woodpecker is the fire-ground beetle {Calosoma 



