THE BIRD STUDY BOOK 



Walk-up, Yellowhammer, and Pigeon Woodpecker. 

 The people of Cape Hatteras know it as Wilkrissen, 

 and in some parts of Florida it is the Yucker-bird. 

 Naturalists call it Colaptes auratus, but name it as 

 you may, this bird of many aliases is well worthy of 

 the esteem in which it is held. It gathers its food 

 almost entirely from the ground, being different in this 

 respect from other Woodpeckers. One may flush it 

 in the grove, the forest, the peanut field, or the un- 

 tilled prairie, and everywhere it is found engaged in 

 the most highly satisfactory occupation of destroying 

 insect life. More than half of its food consists of 

 ants. In this country, taken as a whole. Flickers are 

 very numerous, and the millions of individual birds 

 which have yet escaped the guns of degenerate pot 

 hunters constitute a mighty army of destruction to 

 the Formicidae. 



Let us not forget that any creature which eats 



ants is a decided boon to humanity. Ants, besides 



being wood borers, invaders of pantries, killers of 



young birds, nuisances to campers and barefoot 



[108] 



