350 THE YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER. 



of head and breast entirely wanting, or the pattern faintly indicated by changes in 

 the mottled brownish gray of these parts. Length 8.00-8.75 (203.2-222.3) ; av. of 

 nine Columbus specimens: wing 4.94 (125.5); tail 3.30 (83.8); bill .87 (22.1). 



Recognition Marks. — Chewink size; black breast-patch; red or enclosed 

 white of throat; sulphur-yellow tinge of under parts distinctive. 



Nesting. — Not positively known to breed in Ohio. Nest, in a hole excavated 

 in tree about forty feet up. Eggs, 5-7, pure white, not conspicuously polished. 

 Av. size, .87 X .67 (22.1 X 17.). 



General Range. — Eastern North America north to about latitude 63" 

 30' (north of Fort Simpson), breeding from Massachusetts northward; south in 

 winter to the West Indies, Mexico and Costa Rica. 



Range in Ohio. — Common, sometimes abundant during migrations. 



BEFORE the maple sap has ceased running, our woods are invaded from 

 the south by a small army of hungry Sapsuckers. The birds are rather 

 unsuspicious, quiet, and sluggish in their movements. Their common note 

 is a drawling and petulant kee-a, like that of a distant Hawk ; but they use 

 it rather to vent their feelings than to call their fellows, for altho there may 

 be twenty in a given grove, they are only chance associates and have no deal- 

 ings one with another. Starting near the bottom of a tree, one goes hitching 

 his way up the trunk, turns a lazy back-somersault to reinspect some neglected 

 crevice, or leaps out into the air to capture a passing insect. The bulk of this 

 bird's food, however, at least during the migration, is secured at the expense 

 of the tree itself. The rough exterior bark-layer, or cortex of, say, a maple, 

 is stripped ofif, and then the bird drills a transverse series of oval or roughly 

 rectangular holes through which the sap is soon flowing. The inner bark 

 it eaten as removed and the sap is eagerly drunk. It is said also that in some 

 cases the bird relies upon this sugar-bush to attract insects which it likes, 

 and thus makes its little wells do triple service. According to Professor 

 Btitler, an observer in Indiana, Mrs. J. L. Hine, once watched a Sapsucker 

 in early spring for seven hours at a stretch, and during this time the bird did 

 not move above a yard from a certain maple tap from which it drank at 

 intervals. 



Pine trees also afford a favorite sustenance for this greedy Sapsucker. 

 A certain group of exotic pines, on the State University campus, has suffered 

 from the attacks of this species, possibly of the same individual, for several 

 successive years. Each season the bird, keeping pace with the growth of the 

 tree, attacks a higher section, and reopens the wounds of the previous year. Of 

 course this sort of thing is not be encouraged in orchards or ornamental trees, 

 but the amount of damage done the country over is not serious, and the bird 

 is also a large consumer of insects. 



It is difficult to believe that this handsome little Woodpecker, which 

 appears so abundantly the second week in April, and even lingers into May, 



