7 
An examination of many stomachs of these two birds shows that 
from two-thirds to three-fourths of the food consists of insects, chiefly 
noxious. Wood-boring beetles, both adults and larve, are conspicu- 
ous, and with them are associated many caterpillars, mostly species 
that burrow into trees. Next in importance are the ants that live in 
decaying wood, all of which are sought by woodpeckers and eaten in 
great quantities. Many auts are particularly harmful to timber, for if 
they find a small spot of decay in the vacant burrow of some wovd- 
borer, they enlarge the hole, and as their colony is always on the 
increase, continue to eat away the wood until the whole trunk is houvey- 
Fic. 2.—Hairy woodpecker. 
combed. Moreover, these insects are not accessible to other birds, and 
could pursue their career of destruction unmolested were it not that 
the woodpeckers, with beaks and tongues especially fitted for such 
work, dig out and devour them. It is thus evident that woodpeckers 
are great conservators of forests. To them, more than to any other 
agency, we owe the preservation of timber from hordes of destructive 
insects. 
One of the larger woodpeckers familiar to everyone is the flicker, or 
golden-winged woodpecker (Colaptes auratus) (fig. 3), which is generally 
distributed throughout the United States from the Atlantic Coast to 
