836 Report of State Geologist. 



found at that season. By spring they have removed most of the bark- 

 scales from the pine, and it then appears quite clean. The r^in flows 

 from the wounds the bird has made and forms milky streaks and 

 gummy excrescences later in the season, which look unsightly. The 

 damage they do is to lawn and orchard trees. The pines are weakened, 

 their tops girdled until they become bent, and even blown off by 

 the wind. Apple trees and choice maples are seriously damaged, espe- 

 cially when the Sapsuekers are very abundant. I have counted six of 

 these birds, at one time, on a dozen sugar-maples in front of one lot 

 in my own town, and have seen the sap flow in a stream. Mrs. Jane 

 L. Hine, in the spring of 1888, saw one of these birds alight beneath 

 a tap in a small maple tree near its top. It emptied the holes of sap, 

 then waited for it to collect, and drajik again. This was repeated time 

 after time for hours. The observer determined to stay until the bird 

 was satisfied or left. She watched it from 10 o'clock in the morning 

 until 5 o'clock in the evening, and then left the bird where she first 

 saw it. In the entire seven hours it had not moved more than a 

 yard from the holes from which it drank. They, of course, get 

 the principal supply of sap at the time when it flows most freely. 

 Then they also eat most of the inner bark. At these times they also 

 eat much insect food, and as summer comes they undoubtedly live 

 more and more upon insects. The tongue is not provided with a 

 spear-like point, and it can not be extended as far as other Wood- 

 peckers project theirs, because of the short hyoid. Instead, the tip 

 of the tongue of the Sapsucker is provided with stiff hairs, and farther 

 back with spines. The hairs may serve as a brush or mop, or to guide 

 the sap onto the tongue, and they and the spines may serve them in 

 their insect-catching. Prof. F. E. L. Beal, in Bulletin ISTo. 7, of the 

 Division of Ornithology and Mammalogy, of the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, informs us that of eighty-one stomachs examined, 

 50 per cent, of the food was animal and 50 per cent, vegetable. Of 

 the former 36 per cent, was ants; 5, beetles and their larvae; 2, cater- 

 pillars; 1, grasshoppers; 1, bugs and plant lice; 3, flies, and 2, spiders 

 and myriapods. Fruit formed 26 per cent, of the entire food, and the 

 inner bark of trees 23 per cent., most of which was eaten in April and 

 October. 



In southern Indiana they usually appear in October, and through 

 that month and well into November they are common. The earliest 

 date I have seen them in fall at Brookville was September 24, 1886. 

 Mr. H. V. Barnett noted the first arrivals in WaiTen County, Sep- 

 tember 21, 1897. When with us they utter a call that reminds one 

 of the low mew of a cat. This is most often heard in spring. G-ener- 



