RED-HEADED WOODPECKER. 413 



of the year. In south-eastern Texas I found this conspicuous Woodpecker exceedingly 

 abundant from November to April, and very numerous in summer. In Houston I found 

 it nesting in the water and swamp oaks in the streets, and in the sycamores and maples 

 along the picturesque Buffalo Bayou. It was very confiding and tame, hammering 

 frequently on houses and stables, and especially on the steeples of churches and on tele- 

 graph posts. I discovered a nest in a sycamore in a street, about fifteen feet from the 

 ground, and only a few yards from a house. In Florida, particularly on the Chatta- 

 hoochee and in the woods fringing Lake Apopka, as well as on the St. Johns and Ockla- 

 waha, I have seen this beautiful bird at all times of the year. 



Its favorite resorts are the borders of woods, forests along streams and around 

 lakes, groups of trees in pastures and fields, solitary lindens, sugar maples, beeches, and 

 ashes along highways, parks and small groups of trees in the cities, etc. I have nowhere 

 observed these birds so numerous as in newly cleared fields in the South. The dense 

 bottom woods in this section of the country are not cut down. Only the underwood 

 is cleared away, but the large trees are invariably girdled. They soon die; the smaller 

 branches soon drop off and only the larger limbs and the trunks remain. Often they 

 stand in the fields for many years, until one by one has been destroyed by insects and 

 storms. Wood-worms, beetles, ants, and other insects are constantly w^orking, and 

 finally nothing is left of the former forest giant as a small heap of dust-like matter. 

 When the trees are girdled, the Red-heads and other Woodpeckers find a rich supply of 

 insects "first under the decomposing bark and then in the soft and brittle wood. These 

 fields with their girdled and dead trees present a deplorable appearance, but they are 

 the very paradise of the Woodpeckers. 



Insects of all kinds, principally those infesting the trees, form the main diet of the 

 Red-head. Grasshoppers, beetles, and ants are also captured, and it makes frequent 

 sallies in the air after passing moths and butterflies, w^hich it seizes with much dexterity. 

 When the young have left the nest, it is very intent on all kinds of firuit, particularly 

 mulberries, poke and elder berries. It frequently enters the orchard and the garden of 

 small fruits to take its share. In the days of my childhood it claimed the first ripe 

 apples for itself. With powerful strokes it pecked deep holes in the finest and ripest 

 fruit, and when disturbed it speared it with its long bill and flew off. In the South 

 they frequently visited the fig trees near my house, committing great havoc among the 

 sweet ripe fruit. They are also said to eat Indian corn in the milk. In fall and winter 

 nuts and wild berries form the main diet of these Woodpeckers. This bird is also a 

 hoarder. Beech nuts are often driven into cracks of fence rails, posts, and tree trunks, 

 and sometimes a knot-hole is entirely filled up with nuts. "In several instances," says 

 Dr. O. P. Hay, "the space formed by a board springing away from a fence was nearly 

 filled with nuts, and afterwards pieces of bark and wood were brought and driven 

 over the nuts as if to hide them from poachers." 



"Last spring," writes Dr. G. S. Agersborg, of Vermillion, S. Dak., "in opening a 

 good many birds of this species with the object of ascertaining their principal food, I 

 found in their stomachs nothing but young grasshoppers. One of them, which had its 

 headquarters near my house, was observed making frequent visits to an old oak post, 

 and on examining it I found a large crack where the Woodpecker had inserted about 



