12 THE FOOD OF WOODPECKERS. 
has discovered a decayed spot inhabited by wood-boring larve or a 
colony of ants. ; 
One hundred and forty stomachs of the Downy Woodpecker have 
been examined. They were collected during every month in the year 
and in 21 States, the District of Columbia, Ontario, and New Bruns- 
wick. A few of the western subspecies (Dryobates pubescens gairdnert), 
from British Columbia, have been included. The stomachs contained 
74 percent of insects, 25 percent of vegetable matter, and 1 percent 
of mineral matter or sand. The insects belong to the following orders: 
Ants (Hymenoptera), beetles (Coleoptera), bugs (Hemiptera), flies 
(Diptera), caterpillars (Lepidoptera), aud grasshoppers (Orthoptera). 
Spiders and myriapods were also present. While all of these were 
eaten to some extent, they appear in widely different proportions. The 
ants constitute almost one-third of all the animal food, or about 23 per 
cent of the whole, indicating a very decided taste for this rather acid 
and highly flavored article of diet. Beetles stand a little higher in 
order of importance, amounting to about one-third of the entire insect 
food, or somewhat more than 24 percent of all. Many of these belong 
to the family of May beetles, a few were the predaceous ground beetles, 
but by far the greatest number were wood-boring larve, a fact showing 
that this little bird while securing his dinner is doing good work for 
the forest. One-fifth of the animal food, or 16 percent of the total, 
consists of caterpillars, many of which apparently are wood-boring 
species; others are kinds that live on stems and foliage. Among insects 
the most interesting are the bugs (Hemiptera), which are represented 
in the stomachs by several species, notably by plant lice (Aphides), 
which in several instances were found in considerable quantities, 
amounting to 4 percent of the whole food. From the minute size 
and very perishable nature of these insects it is evident that they 
must disappear from the stomach iv a very short time, and it is fair to 
infer that many more were eaten than shown by the food remains. 
Spiders, including harvestmen or daddy longlegs, were eaten freely, 
and amounted to nearly one-tenth of thewhole. A few bits of snail 
shell were found in one stomach. 
Eleven Downy Woodpeckers from Kansas collected in winter (De- 
cember) deserve special notice. Eight of them had eaten the eges of 
grasshoppers to an average extent of 10 percent of all their food. 
This, besides being in itself a good work, emphasizes the fact that this 
bird resorts to the ground for food in case of necessity. 
Prof. Samuel Aughey examined 4 stomachs of the Downy Wood- 
pecker in Nebraska, all of which contained grasshoppers, 
The late Dr. Townend Glover, entomologist of the Department of 
Agriculture, states that the stomach of a Downy Woodpecker shot in 
February “was filled with black ants.” He states further, “On one 
occasion a Downy Woodpecker was observed by myself making a 
number of small, rough-edged perforations in the bark of a young ash 
