162 BIRDS 



The Yellow-bellied Woodpecker 



Length — 8 to 8.6 indies. About one fifth smaller than the 

 robin. 



Male — ^Black, white, and yellowish white above, with 

 bright red crown, chin, and throat. Breast black, in 

 form of crescent. A yellowish white line, beginning at 

 bill and passing below eye, merges into the pale yellow of 

 the bird underneath. Wings spotted with white, and 

 coverts chiefly white. Tail black; white on middle of 

 feathers. 



Female — Paler and with head and throat white. 



Range — Eastern North America, from Labrador to Cen- 

 tral America. 



Migrations — ^AprU. October. Resident north of Massa- 

 chusetts. 



This woodpecker commonly called the sapsucker I am 

 sorry to introduce to you as the black sheep of his family, 

 with scarcely a friend to speak a good word for him. 

 Murder is committed on his immensely useful relatives, 

 who have the misfortune to look ever so little like him 

 simply because ignorant people's minds are firmly fixed in 

 the belief that every woodpecker is a sapsucker, therefore a 

 tree-ldller, which only this miscreant is, and very rarely. 

 The rest of the family who drill holes in a tree harmlessly, 

 even beneficially, do so because they are probing for in- 

 sects. The sapsucker alone drills rings or belts of holes for 

 the sake of getting at the soft, nutritious inner bark, the 

 cambium layer, and drinking the sap that trickles from it. 



Mrs. Eckstorm, who has made a careful study of the 



