DO OTHER WOODPECKERS TAP TREES? 91 



writer in Virginia about 10 per cent of the basswood barrel heads and 

 of the oak staves bore defects sufficient to cause their rejection from 

 the much more valuable furniture or tight cooperage grades. It has 

 been shown, furthermore, that from 16 to 39 per cent of the wood of 

 individual trees, of bald cypress at least, is spoiled by defects due to 

 sapsucker work. However, if only 1 per cent of the lumber of trees 

 attacked (10 per cent of the whole number) is discarded, the annual 

 loss for the whole United States is more than a million and a quarter 

 dollars. It seems certain that this estimate is not excessive, since it 

 takes no account of lumber not rejected but reduced in grade, and 

 since it has practically been demonstrated that the loss on one kind 

 of timber alone, namely hickory, is fully half the sum mentioned. 

 The meaning of these figures will be better understood if one considers 

 that they express the value of five-sevenths the total cut of black 

 walnut in the United States, or very near the value of the total 

 lumber, lath, and shingle production of single States, as Arizona, 

 Colorado, or New Mexico, and considerably more than the value of 

 the lumber produced by any one of nine other States in the Union. 1 



DO OTHER SPECIES OF WOODPECKERS SHARE THE SAPSUCKERS' 



HABITS? 



It has always been a mooted question to what extent, if any, other 

 species of woodpeckers tap trees for the sap. Apparently the red- 

 headed woodpecker is occasionally guilty of the act, but cases where 

 it has been detected actually drilling the holes are so few that the 

 habit must be considered exceptional. Mr. C. A. White writes as 

 follows : 



Upon the Iowa University campus we have a number of grand old aboriginal oaks, 

 a favorite resort for red-headed woodpeckers (Melanerpes erythrocephalus) . Among 

 the young and growing trees that have been transplanted upon the campus are some 

 sugar maples (Acer saccharinum) the bodies of which are 6 to 8 inches in diameter. 

 Seeing the woodpeckers busily tapping upon them, I examined ihe trunks and found 

 them perfectly sound, but the birds had pierced many holes of the usual size through 

 the bark and into the cambium layer, where they stopped. The sap was flowing 

 freely from the holes, and, watching the movements of the birds afterwards upon the 

 trees, I became convinced that they were sucking the sap and that they had pecked 

 the holes for the purpose of obtaining it. 2 



A western relative of the red-headed woodpecker has been found 

 doing similar work. Mr. F. Stephens makes the following statement 

 in regard to the California woodpecker (Melanerpes/. bairdi) : 



At one of my camps in the pine region of Smiths Mountain, a family of this species 

 developed the sapsucking habit. I had noticed some fresh holes in the bark of two 

 live oaks, a foot or two from the ground, from which sap was flowing, and later I saw 

 the birds drinking — in one case three were seen drinking at the same time. This is 

 the only instance of the habit in this species that has come under my observation. 3 



1 All estimates based on Forest Products Report No. 40, Bureau of Census, 1909. 



* American Naturalist, VII, 49G, 1873. 



a F. Stephens, in Bendire's Life Histories of N. A. Birds, II, 115, 1895. 



