WOODPECKER FAMILY. 17 
SUMMARY. 
The above brief review of the food of the hairy woodpecker indicates 
that nearly half its yearly food consists of larve of some of the 
most destructive insects known, while this service is not offset by the 
destruction of any useful product. The other elements of the bird’s 
food are either beneficial or neutral. It is unfortunate that the species 
is not more abundant on the Pacific coast. 
DOWNY WOODPECKER. 
(Dryobates pubescens gairdneri and other subspecies.) 
To the ordinary observer the downy woodpecker is only a miniature 
edition of the hairy, which it resembles in everything but size. It 
seems, however, to be far more abundant than its larger relative, 
especially in California. It ismuch more domestic than the hairy, 
and frequents orchards and gardens and the vicinity of houses. Its 
food consists of the same elements but in different proportions. The 
following report is based on an examination of 80 stomachs, taken in 
every month of the year. The food consists of 77 percent of animal 
matter to 23 of vegetable, thus agreeing closely with the diet of the 
hairy. 
Animal food.—The animal food is composed of insects, with a few 
spiders. The western downy eats 16 percent of wood-boring larve, 
a little more than the eastern downy, but less than one-third as much 
as the hairy woodpecker. Other beetles amount to 13 percent. They 
are mostly harmful species, the exception being a few Carabide, or 
predaceous ground beetles. 
Ants are eaten to the extent of 12 percent, which is less than half 
the quantity taken by the eastern subspecies. While ants may some- 
times subserve a useful purpose, they are for the most part annoying 
or noxious. It is well known that they protect and foster plant lice, 
and they often injure timber by boring galleries through it, frequently 
beginning in the abandoned burrow of a beetle larva. In houses 
they are an unmitigated nuisance, and in gardens and lawns are often 
equally obnoxious. For these reasons the habitual destruction of 
ants by woodpeckers is commendable. Other Hymenoptera amount 
to less than 2 percent, and consist of wasps and wild bees. 
The largest item in the food of the downy is made up of caterpillars, 
pup, and a few adult moths. These aggregate a little over 21 per- 
cent. Pupz of the codling moth were identified in 4 stomachs and 
the larvee in 2, of which one contained 16 entire full-grown larve. 
Another held the remains of 20 of these pernicious insects. From 
investigations during the past few years it appears that birds con- 
stitute a most efficient natural check to the spread of this destruc- 
tive moth, especially such birds as woodpeckers, titmice, nuthatches, 
and creepers, which obtain much of their food from crevices in the 
38301—Bull. 34—10-——_2 
