WOODPECKER FAMILY. 19 
In the twelve hours during which the birds were watched, the 
nestlings were fed 160 times, an average of 134 times per hour; or 
each of the 4 was fed more than three times per hour. The nest 
was in a stub of a cherry tree in a mixed orchard, and apparently 
all the foraging was done in the immediate vicinity, as food was 
brought too often to have been carried any great distance; moreover, 
the parent birds were frequently seen searching the trees. Both 
parents took part in caring for the young, one often waiting patiently 
near by while the other fed the nestlings. At first the parent birds 
entered the nest chamber when they came with food, but later, as 
the nestlings grew larger, they remained outside, thrusting their heads 
in at the opening. The food nearly always appeared as a white mass 
in the beak, which led to the suspicion that the young were being fed 
with woolly aphids. The parent birds came from the direction of 
a number of apple trees which were badly infested with this pest, and 
the bark of the trees showed places from which the insects had been 
recently taken. Thus it was practically certain that aphids were 
being fed to the young woodpeckers. 
SUMMARY. 
From the foregoing account it is evident that the downy wood- 
pecker is of great value to the horticulturist. Its food consists 
largely of orchard pests, and its levies upon fruit are insignificant. 
The orchardist should note that the downy makes its nest in a cham- 
ber which it excavates in a partly rotten trunk or limb of moderate 
size, frequently of an apple tree. Where such wood occurs in or 
about the orchard, it should be left for the convenience of the wood- 
pecker and his successors, the wrens and titmice. By so simple a 
precaution as this the number of downies and of other useful birds 
that build in holes may be materially increased in an orchard and 
their services secured without cost at the very point where most 
needed. When trimming dead limbs, it is necessary only to leave a 
few inches of the stub, which is not unsightly, and which answers 
all the purposes of the woodpecker. 
NUTTALL WOODPECKER. 
(Dryobates nuttalli.) 
The Nuttall woodpecker is well distributed over California west 
of the Sierra Nevada, but is less abundant than the downy and not 
quite so domestic. It is rather more fond of big oaks and other 
forest trees than of the orchard, but is often found on fruit trees. 
The following analysis of its food is based upon the examination of 
the contents of 46 stomachs, taken in various parts of the State and 
in every month except May. The first division of the food into 
