SPECIES. 



89 



other insects that were runniiij;- over the tree trunks. In that time 

 one bird seized an ant and the other snapped at some flying insect. 

 One drank sap from the drills 30 and the other 41 times. Later in 

 the day one drilled 3 new holes and the other 5. The holes were 

 made in more or less regular rings about the trunk, one ring close 

 above another, for a distance of 6 to 8 inches. The drills were about 

 a quarter of an inch deep, and penetrated the bark and the outer part 

 of the wood. 



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Fig. 31.— Yellow-bellied sapsucker. 



In November, 1900, 7 of the 9 trees were dead and the others werei 

 dying. A strip of bark 7 inches long by 2 wide, where the sapsuckers 

 had worked in 1896, was torn off and found to contain 84 drills, an aver- 

 age of 6 to the square inch. Many of them were so close together that 

 the tissue between had broken down, leaving rents in the bark an inch 

 or two long, and in some places almost girdling the tree. The loss Df 

 sap must have been an exhausting drain, but it was not the sole cause 

 of death. Beetles of the flat-headed apple borer, attracted by the 



