CARPENTERS IN FEATHERS 163 



woodpeckers in a charming little book that every bird- 

 lover should read, tells of a certain sapsucker that came 

 silently and early in the autumn mornings to feed on a 

 favorite mountain ash tree near her dining-room window. 

 In time this rascal killed the tree. "Early in the day he 

 showed considerable activity," writes Mrs. Eckstorm, 

 "flitting from limb to limb and sinking a few holes, three or 

 four in a row, usually above the previous upper girdle of the 

 limbs he selected to work upon. After he had tapped 

 several limbs, he would sit patiently waiting for the sap to 

 flow, lapping it up quickly when the drop was large enough. 

 At first he would be nervous, taking alarm at noises and 

 wheeling away on his broad wings till his fright was over, 

 when he would steal quietly back to his sapholes. When 

 not alarmed, his only movement was from one row of holes 

 to another, and he tended them with considerable regular- 

 ity. As the day wore on he became less excitable, and 

 clung cloddishly to his tree trunk with ever-increasing tor- 

 pidity, until finally he hung motionless as if intoxicated, 

 tippling in sap, a dishevelled, smutty, silent bird, stupefied 

 with drink, with none of that brilliancy of plumage and 

 light-hearted gaiety which made him the noisiest and most 

 conspicuous bird of our April woods." 



But it must be admitted that very rarely does the sap- 

 sucker girdle a tree with holes enough to sap away its life. 

 He may have an orgy of intemperance once in a while, but 

 much should be forgiven an erring one as dexterous as a 

 flycatcher in taking insects on the wing and with a hearty 

 appetite for pests. Wild fruit and soft-shelled nuts he 

 likes, too. He never bores a tree to get insects as his 

 cousins do, for only when a nest must be chiselled out is he 

 a wood 'pecker in the strict sense. 



