32 



WOODPECKEES IN RELATION TO TEEES. 



Geay biech (Betula populifolia). — Department of Agriculture 

 grounds, District of Columbia: 



White or canoe biech (Betula alba). — This tree is frequently and 

 seriously injured by sapsuckers (PI. V, fig. 2). Weed and Dearborn 

 say that "hundreds of punctures" are "made in white birches" and 

 Hopkins notes that the sapsucker injures or kills young trees. Bolles, 

 in writing of a sapsucker "orchard," states that "The tree in use 

 last year was nearly dead. Two neighboring birches showing scars 

 of earlier years were quite dead. . . . Orchard No. 4 . . . con- 

 sisted of a large number of dead and a few living trees. . . . The 

 part of the orchard in use was a birch, from whose roots rose 4 

 major trunks quickly subdividing into 15 minor stems each ris- 

 ing to a height of over 

 30 feet. All of the 15 

 trunks were dead or 

 dying. Only 7 of them 

 bore leaves." "Hermit," 

 speaking of a sapsucker 

 "orchard," says: "The 

 . . . canoe birches were 

 dead or dying. Many 

 . . . had been broken off 

 by the wind just below 

 the belt of punctures." 

 Horsford says: "I have 

 seen the white birch cut 

 off, or rather broken off, 

 20 feet from the ground, 

 in more cases than I can 

 number, all his work. 

 . . . The birch tree in- 

 variably dies." And Gar- 

 field notes that "This 

 bird invariably attacks what appears to be perfectly sound and 

 healthy bark. Great injury is inflicted by these attacks. . . . The 

 white birch is frequently killed." George H. Selover writes that 

 sapsuckers have often killed silver birches at Lake City, Minn, (letter, 

 1885). The tree is attacked in Maine also (H.). 



White biech (Betula pendula). — Department of Agriculture 

 grounds, District of Columbia. 



Cheery birch (Betula lenta). — West Virginia (H.). 

 Yellow birch (Betula luted). — The sapsucker "is partial to the 

 . . . yellow birch" (Bendire), and it "injures or kills young trees" 

 (Hopkins). William Brewster says that the yellow birch is very 



Fig. 6.— Sapsucker work on hornbeam (Carpinus caroUniana). 



