14 



insects which, if left to do their work unhampered, would soon increase in'' 

 numbers so as to devastate every orchard.' 



In the biennial report of the Commissioners on Fisheries and 

 Game, Indiana, 1905-06, Charles K. Reed, the well-known 

 naturalist of Worcester, Massachusetts, is credited with the 

 following statement: — 



Last fall I watched a Downy busily at work hammering on the trunk 

 of an apple tree. He would pound away for half a minute steadily in 

 one spot and then hitch sideways about an inch and repeat the operation; 

 when he had completely encircled the tree he dropped down about his 

 length and made another ring around the trunk. The marks left on the 

 tree were identical with those that I had supposed were made by the Sap- 

 suckers. The Downy did not appear to find anything to eat, and I con- 

 cluded that he was doing it in play, or that he wished to sharpen his bill." 



It will be noted here that the bird having made one line of 

 holes backed down the tree and started another. Mr. Stephen 

 P. Brownell watched a Sapsucker making similar rings of holes 

 in an alder in summer, and he says that the mother bird in 

 making the pits, out of which the young took sap, always 

 worked upward.' Frank Bolles and C. Hart Merriam also 

 noted this: at that time of the year sap flows from the upper 

 holes, or the last row made. 



A note to Mr. C. K. Reed elicited the reply that he did not 

 write the article referred to, but that he supplied the cuts 

 that went with it. Also that he never had observed this 

 habit of the Downy Woodpecker, but he says that Chester 

 Reed wrote this, as well as other unsigned articles in the 

 magazine, and that Chester's statement of what came under 

 his personal observation could be depended upon as an accu- 

 rate chronicle of the facts. Charles K. Reed was the publisher 

 of the magazine entitled "American Ornithology," and Chester 

 Reed was its editor. The latter died in 1912. He wrote all 

 the material in this magazine not credited to others. The arti- 

 cle in the Indiana publication was evidently made up by some 

 one in Indiana by taking excerpts bodily from American Orni- 

 thology written by Chester Reed, and illustrating them with 



' Reed, Chester A.: American Ornithology, Vol. Ill, 1903, p. 94. 



2 Biennial Report, Commissioners Fisheries and Game, Indiana, 1905-06, p. 733. 



» American Ornithology, Vol. VI, 1906, p. 78. 



