BIRDS AS CONSERVATORS OF THE FOREST. 247 



The Eastern form, commonly known as the flicker, or golden-winged wood- 

 pecker, is one of the largest and best known of our common woodpeckers, and is 

 more migratory than either the downy or hairy. In winter it is absent, or at least 

 very scarce, on its breeding range in the Northern States, where it is- abundant in 

 summer and early fall. In most places it is a much shyer bird than any of the 

 preceding, and while it frequents the farm, and comes about the buildings freely, 

 it keeps more in the tops of the trees, and does not allow so near an approach of 

 its greatest enemy — man. It is the most terrestrial of all the woodpeckers, in spite 

 of its high-perching and high-nesting proclivities, and may often be seen walking 

 about in the grass like a meadow lark. 



From the examination of over 400 stomachs of the flicker, it has been found that 

 its food consists of approximately sixty per cent of animal matter and forty per 

 cent of vegetable. The animal matter is made up of ants, beetles, bugs, grass- 

 hoppers, crickets, caterpillars, May flies and white ants. Three fourths of this, or 

 forty-five per cent of the whole, consists of ants. No North American bird has 

 yet been investigated whose record for eating ants is equal to this. Quite a number 

 of the stomachs were entirely filled with these insects, and in many, even where 

 there was other food, more than a thousand of them were found. The contents 

 of three stomachs were carefully counted, and two of them were found to contain 

 over 3,000 each and the third over 5,000 of these creatures. A large part of the 

 ants eaten by the flicker are the small species which live in burrows in the ground, 

 but many of the wood-boring species are also taken. Another interesting insect 

 found in the flicker's stomach is the white ant (Termes flavipes). While this 

 insect has no natural relationship to the ordinary ant, it very much resembles 

 it in its habits, often inhabiting rotten logs, and sometimes living in and injuring 

 living trees. It also bores into timber in buildings. 



Beetles constitute about 10 per cent of the flicker's food, and a much larger 

 proportion of them are adults than is the case with the preceding species. Still 

 it does eat some of the wood-boring larvae, which it obtains from the tree, where 

 the wood is not too hard. May beetles (Lachnosterna) and their allies were found 

 in several stomachs, as were also a few predaceous ground beetles (Carabidae), 

 and some larvae of tiger beetles (Cicindelidae). The two last, taken in connection 

 with the ants and a few grasshoppers which had been eaten, emphasize the ter- 

 restrial habits of the species. 



The vegetable portion of the flicker's food is larger and more varied than that 

 of any of the foregoing species, but this part of the woodpecker's diet will be 

 taken up and discussed on another page. 



