THE WOODPECKER. 83 



^s yet none too luxuriant plantations has rendered 

 him rather an economic pest, unlike the majority of 

 the family. For Woodpeckers are, generally speaking, 

 among the most useful of birds, attacking the 

 destructive woodboring insects which few other species 

 can reach, and serving as a wholesome check on the 

 industrious ant, which in the East finds so many ways 

 of exercising its ingenuity to our discomfort. 



