250 USEFUL BIRDS. 
most of the State wherever trees grow. Its sharp, clear, in- 
cisive notes are aptly compared by Chapman to the ring of 
a marble quarrier’s chisel. Its only approach to a musical 
performance is its resonant drumming on a sounding hollow 
limb or bird box. This habit, which it has in common with 
other Woodpeckers, seems to be resorted to out of pure 
exuberance of joy and vigorous life ; it is, with this carpenter 
bird, a fitting substitute for song. 
The nesting cavity is wrought out with happy labor in some 
dead limb. The entrance is just large enough to admit the 
owner by tight squeezing, and the interior is trimmed into 
graceful curves, rounding at the bottom into a receptacle for 
the snowy eggs. The birds sometimes carry the chips away, 
but are often careless of concealment, and let them fall about 
the foot of the tree. 
Downy is a bird of the old orchard in summer. He prefers 
to inhabit trees that are neglected by their owners, and 
assumes the self-appointed guardianship of such trees in the 
happiest frame of mind imaginable. He does this for the 
reason that these neglected orchards harbor a host of insects 
and vermin, in the destruction of which he revels. Under 
those scales of bark there lurk in early spring the larve of 
the codling moth, which pass the winter in their loosely spun 
cocoons. Downy knows just where to findthem. He circles 
the trunk and limbs, climbs up or comes down backward, 
and ever and anon he taps and sounds the bark, until the 
tell-tale vibration given back by the scale above the cocoon 
corroborates the evidence of his eyes. Every stroke with 
which he knocks on the door of an insect’s retreat sounds 
the crack of doom. He pierces the bark with his beak, 
then with his barbed tongue drags forth the insect, and 
moves on to tap the last summons on the door of the next 
in line. Now and then an intelligent bird carries the warfare 
against the apple worm still farther, and pecks the fruit upon 
the tree ; but, so far as my experience goes, he attacks only 
wormy fruit, and when he has the worm he leaves the apple. 
Dr. Trimble, in his book entitled “Insects Injurious to 
Fruits,” asserts that he found numerous instances where the 
bird had penetrated the cocoons of the codling moth. 
