UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 
all seasons — the downy and the hairy to the good 
of the trees, the yellow-bellied often to their injury. 
The two former search for the eggs and the larvee 
of the insects that infest the trees, as do the nut- 
hatches and the chickadees, which come quite as 
regularly; but the yellow-bellied comes for the life- 
blood of the trees themselves. He is popularly 
known as the “sapsucker,” and a sapsucker he is. 
Many apple-trees in every orchard are pock-marked 
by his bill, and occasionally a branch is evidently 
killed by his many and broad drillings. As I write 
these lines, on September the 26th, in my bush 
tent in one of the home orchards, a sapsucker is 
busy on a veteran apple-tree whose fruit has often 
gone to school with me in my pockets during my 
boyhood days on the farm. He goes about his work 
systematically, visiting now one of the large branches 
and then a portion of the trunk, and drilling his 
holes in rows about a quarter of an inch apart. 
Every square foot of the trunk contains from three 
hundred to four hundred holes, new and old, cut 
through into the inner, vital cambium layer. The 
holes are about the size of the end of a rye-straw, 
and run in rings around the tree, the rings being 
about a half an inch apart. The newly cut ones 
quickly fill with sap, which, to my tongue, has a 
rather insipid taste, but which is evidently relished 
by the woodpecker. He drills two or three holes, 
then pauses a moment, and when they are filled 
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