26 THE FOOD OF WOODPECKERS. 
26 percent and vegetable matter 74 percent. A small quantity of 
gravel was found in 7 stomachs, but was not reckoned as food. Ants 
were found in 14 stomachs, and amounted to 11 percent of the whole 
food. Adult beetles stand next in importance, aggregating 7 percent 
of all food, while larval beetles only reach 3 percent. Caterpillars had 
been taken by only 2 birds, but they had eaten so many that they 
amounted to + percent of the whole food. The remaining animal food 
is made up of small quantities of bugs (Hemiptera), crickets ( Orthoptera), 
and spiders, with a few bones of a small tree frog found in 1 stomach 
taken in Florida. 
Dr. B. H. Warren states that the stomachs of 3 Red-bellied Wood- 
peckers captured in winter in Chester and Delaware counties, Pa., con- 
tained black beetles, larvie, fragments of acorns, and a few seeds of 
wild grapes. The stomachs of 8 adults from the St. Johns River, 
Florida, contained red seeds of 2 species of palmetto, but no insects. 
Two additional stomachs from the same locality contained palmetto 
berries, fragments of crickets (Nemobius and Oracharis saltator), a pal- 
metto ant (Camponotus escuriens), and numerous joints of a myriapod, 
probably Julus.! 
Dr. Townend Glover found in the stomach of a Red-bellied Wood- 
pecker killed in December “ pieces of acorns, seeds, and gravel, but no 
insects. Another, shot in December, contained wing-cases of Buprestis, 
and a species of wasp or Polistes, acorns, seeds, and no bark. A third, 
shot in May, was filled with seeds, pieces of bark, and insects, among — 
which was an entire Lachnosterna, or May bug.”? 
The vegetable food of the Red-bellied Woodpecker contained in the 
22 stomachs examined by the division consisted of the following seeds — 
and fruits: 
Grain: Fruit—Continued. 
Corn, Saw palmetto (Sabal serrulata). 
Fruit: Holly (flex opaca). 
Mulberries (Morus rubra). Wild sarsaparilla ( dralia nudicaulia). 
Wild grapes (Vitis cordifolia), Bay berries (Myrica cerifera). 
Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quin- Pine (Pinus echinata). 
quefolia). Poison ivy (Rhus radicans). 
Elderberries (Sambucus canadensis). Ragweed (4 mbrosia sp.). 
Rough-leaved cornel (Cornus asperi- 
folia). 
Corn was found in only 2 stomachs. The other items were well dis- 
tributed, and none of them appear to be specially preferred, unless it 
may be the poison ivy, which was found in 6 stomachs, and amounted to 
nearly 12 per cent of the whole food. Although 8 of the 22 birds were 
collected in Florida, no trace of the pulp of oranges was discovered, but 
that oranges are eaten by them is shown by the following interesting 
notes. 
Birds of Pennsylvania 2a ed., 1890, pp. 174, 175. 
7 U.S. Agric. Rept, for 1865, 1866, p. 38, 
