RED-HEADED WOODPECKER. 23 



Besides depredations upon fruit and grain, this woodpecker lias been 

 accused of destroying the eggs of other birds and even of killing the 

 young; and from Florida comes a report that it enters poultry houses 

 and sucks the eggs of domestic fowls. Mr. Charles Aldrich, of Webster 

 City, Iowa, says that a Eed-headed Woodpecker was seen to kill a 

 duckling with a single blow on the head, and then to peck out and eat 

 the brains.i In view of such testimony remains of eggs and young 

 birds were carefully looked for in the stomachs examined, but pieces 

 of eggshell were found in only 1 stomach of the Flicker and 2 of the 

 Eedhead. 



A very unusual trait has been recorded by Dr. Howard Jones, of 

 Circleville, Ohio. Dr. Jones says he has seen the Eed-headed Wood- 

 pecker steal the eggs of eave swallows, and in cases where the necks of 

 the nests were so long that the eggs were out of reach the woodpecker 

 made a hole in the walls of the nest and so obtained the contents. In 

 a colony of swallows containing 'dozens' of nests not a single brood 

 of young was raised. One of the woodpeckers also began to prey upon 

 hens' eggs, and was finally captured in the act of robbing the nest of a 

 sitting hen.^ 



'No traces of young birds or of any other vertebrates were discovered 

 in the stomachs of any of the 7 species under consideration, except 

 bones of a small frog which were found in the stomach of a Eed-bellied 

 Woodpecker {Melanerpes carolinus) from Florida. 



The Eedhead has been accused of doing considerable damage to fruit 

 and grain, and both charges are fairly well sustained. In northern 

 New York Dr. Merriam has seen it peck into apples on the tree, and 

 has several times seen it feed on choke cherries {Prunus virginiana). 



Mr. August Jahn, of Pope County, Ark., writes that it has damaged 

 his corn to the amount of $10 or $15, and Dr. J. E. Mathers, of Upshur 

 County, W. Va., says that the same species feeds on cherries, straw- 

 berries, raspberries, and blackberries, and that its depredations are 

 sometimes serious. According to Mr. Witmer Stone, of Germantown, 

 Pa., Eed-headed Woodpeckers have been observed to strip a black- 

 berry patch of all of its fruit. Mr. W. B. McDaniel, of Decatur County, 

 Ga., also reports that the Sapsucker and Eedhead eat grapes and cher- 

 ries, the loss being sometimes considerable. These examples show the 

 nature of the evidence contributed 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 of a hundred of the same species quietly pursuing their ordinary 

 vocations. Thus an occasional act is taken as a characteristic habit. 



lAm. Nat., Vol. VT, No. 5, May, 1877, p. 308. 



2 Ornithologist and Oologist, Vol. VIII, No. 7, 1883, p. 56. 



