25O REPORT OF THE FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



or third year of use; that the total damage done by them is too insignificant to 

 justify their persecution in well-wooded regions."* 



In a subsequent article Mr. Bolles gives the results of an attempt to keep 

 several young sapsuckers alive on a diet of diluted maple syrup. Unfortunately 

 for the success of the experiment, the birds obtained and greedily devoured many 

 insects that were attracted to the cage by the syrup. How many insects were 

 eaten was not known, but all of the birds died within four months. Examination 

 of their bodies showed fatty degeneration of the liver — a condition said to be 

 usual in cases of starvation. Mr. Bolles has thus proved that concentrated sap 

 (saturated with sugar) is not sufficient to sustain life, even with a small percent- 

 age of insects. The natural inference is that sap, while agreeable to the birds, and 

 consumed in large quantities, holds but a subordinate place as an article of food. 



The examination of the stomachs of quite a number of yellow-bellied wood- 

 peckers shows that they eat animal and vegetable food in about equal proportions. 

 The animal food consists of ants, beetles, flies, bugs, grasshoppers, crickets, May flies 

 and spiders. Ants amount to thirty-six per cent of the whole, a greater record 

 than that of any other woodpecker except the nicker. The other insects do not 

 appear in any remarkable quantities, so that it is as an ant eater that this bird 

 does the greatest good. It is here, if anywhere, that it compensates for what 

 harm it commits in girdling trees. In this last respect, however, it is doubtful 

 if the bird ever inflicts any very appreciable damage upon a natural forest. In 

 these, trees are usually superabundant, and the few that are killed only give 

 a better chance for those that remain. 



Another point, to which Dr. A. D. Hopkins has recently called attention, is the 

 fact that the wounds made in the bark or cambium of trees by the beak of this 

 bird, while sometimes resulting in injury or death to the tree, at other times 

 leads to certain distortions of the grain in future growth which gives a variegated 

 appearance to the polished surface of the timber when used, and often very 

 much enhances its beauty. As the wounds heal over the new layers of wood are 

 either elevated or depressed at the point where the wounds were made, and when 

 the logs are cut into boards the appearance of what is called "bird's-eye" is 

 produced, or if a radial cut is made we have the "curl." These effects resemble 

 very closely the bird's-eyes and curls which are produced naturally in maple and 

 some other woods, but are usually less in numbers in a given area. 



*The Auk, Vol. VIII, July, 1891, p. 11-9. 



