BIRDS AS CONSERVATORS OF THE FOREST. 249 



trees, due, very likely, to their more slender stems. The motive which induces 

 this species to operate thus upon young and healthy trees is, I think, but partly 

 understood. It is unquestionably true that they feed, to a certain extent, both 

 upon the inner bark and the fresh sap from these trees, but that the procure- 

 ment of these two elements of sustenance, gratifying as they doubtless are, is their 

 chief aim in making the punctures I am inclined to dispute. As the sap exudes 

 from the newly made punctures, thousands of flies, yellow-jackets and other insects 

 congregate about the place, till the hum of their wings suggests a swarm of bees. 

 If, now, the tree be watched, the woodpecker will soon be seen to return and 

 alight over the part of the girdle which he has most recently punctured. Here 

 he remains, with motionless body, and feasts upon the choicest species from the 

 host of insects within easy reach. * * * In making each girdle they work 

 around the trunk, and from below upwards, but they may begin a new girdle below 

 an old one. They make but few holes each day, and after completing two or three 

 remain over the spot for some little time, and as the clear fresh sap exudes and 

 trickles down the bark they place their bill against the dependent drop and suck it in 

 with evident relish — a habit which has doubtless given rise to the more appropriate 

 than elegant term sapsucker, by which they are commonly known in some parts 

 of the country. I have several times watched this performance at a distance cf 

 less than 10 feet, and all the details of the process were distinctly seen, the bird 

 looking at me meanwhile 'out of the corner of his eye.' When his thirst is satis- 

 fied he silently disappears, and as silently returns again after a few hours, to feast 

 upon the insects that have been attracted to the spot by the escaping sap. This 

 bird then, by a few strokes of its bill, is enabled to secure both food (animal 

 and vegetable) and drink in abundance for an entire day; and a single tree, 

 favorably situated, may suffice for a whole season."* 



The late Frank Bolles has published some interesting detailed observations 

 respecting the food habits of the sapsucker. His conclusions are: 



"That the yellow-bellied woodpecker is in the habit for successive years of 

 drilling the canoe birch, red maple, red oak, white ash, and probably other trees, 

 for the purpose of taking from them the elaborated sap, and in some cases parts of 

 the cambium layer; that the bird consumes the sap in large quantities for its own 

 sake and not for the insect matter which such sap may chance occasionally to 

 contain; that the. sap attracts many insects of various species, a few of which 

 form a considerable part of the food of this bird, but whose capture does not 

 occupy its time to anything like the extent to which sap drinking occupies it; 

 * * * that the forest trees attacked by them generally die, possibly in the second 



Bull. Xuttall Ornith. Club, Vol. IV, January, 1879, PP- 3S- 



