52 BIRD BEHAVIOUR 



hunting under tree-bark, are in many cases fruit- 

 eaters ; our own Greater Spotted Woodpecker, for 

 instance, eats several kinds of fruit, and in North 

 America the Red-headed Woodpecker (Melanerpes 

 erythrocefhalus) used at any rate to have a very bad 

 name as a fruit-eater, even going so far as to go off 

 vnth an apple spiked on its bill when leaving the 

 orchard, so says Wilson ; and one has even special- 

 ized in a most peculiar vegetable food, the cambium 

 or inner bark of trees and their sap. This is the 

 Sapsucker {Sfhyrapicus varius) of North America, 

 which is often quite a pest by its trick of girdling 

 fruit-trees with its rows of punctures made to ex- 

 tract the sap. The worst of it is that its name and 

 bad reputation have got transferred to other small 

 Woodpeckers ; just as among us the comparatively 

 harmless Kestrel often has to suffer for the misdeeds 

 of the Sparrow-hawk, which really is an inveterate 

 bird-killer, not confining its ravages by any means 

 to Sparrows, but tackling anything from a Blue- tit 

 to a Woodpigeon, so that in its game-list the 

 chicks of Pheasants and Fowls are quite naturally 

 included. 



I have spoken of the specialization of the Wood- 

 pecker's bill for grub-hunting, but this is not very 

 striking at first sight, and the degree to which, the 

 tip of the bin is formed like a chisel is somewhat 

 variable ; it is the hardness of texture that is the 

 important point, and the skill of the bird in using 

 its tool. The Great Black' Woodpecker has been 

 seen in captivity to chip two parallel grooves down 



