DO OTHER WOODPECKERS TAP TREES? 



general ill repute attached to the whole family by most agriculturists — is the sole 

 author of this work, which so often amounts to mischief, there is abundant evidence to 

 disprove. In most parts of Massachusetts, particularly in the Connecticut Valley, 

 this species is so extremely rare that I have never seen more than half a dozen speci- 

 mens in a year, and oftener none at all, and then always during its migrations; while 

 other expert collectors have searched for it unsuccessfully for years ; yet our orchards 

 always present these perforations in profusion, though seldom to an injurious degree; 

 and now and then a forest tree is observed so thoroughly girdled as to be thus destroyed . 

 For this our spotted woodpeckers, Picus pubescens and P. villosus, are chargeable, 

 being in many sections the sole authors of it; they may be, in fact, very often seen 

 engaged in it. I do not, however, suppose their object to be the same as that assigned 

 to the Sphyrapicus varius — that of sucking sap or feeding on the inner bark. 1 



Evidence supporting the same contention is given by Mr. C. K. 

 Reed, who says: 



Most of you have probably noticed apple trees that had rows of holes extending 

 around, or nearly around, the trunk. I was always told, and frequently see it in print 

 now, that these were made 

 by sapsuckers. Perhaps 

 some of them are , but not 

 all. Last fall I watched 

 a downy busily at work 

 hammering on the trunk 

 of an apple tree. He 

 would pound away for 

 about half a minute stead- 

 ily in one spot and then 

 hitch sideways about an 

 inch and repeat the opera- 

 tion; when he had com- 

 pletely encircled the tree 

 he dropped down about 

 his length and made 

 another ring around the 

 trunk. The marks left on 

 the tree were identical 

 with those that I had 

 supposed were made by 

 the sapsuckers. The downy did not appear to find anything to eat, and I concluded 

 that he was doing it in play or that he wished to sharpen his bill. 2 



There is one fallacy included or implied in most of the above quo- 

 tations, namely, that a profusion of punctures in trees where the sap- 

 suckers are scarce proves that the work was done by other wood- 

 peckers. This by no means follows. In most cases the bulk of the 

 pecking on trees is old; only a moderate number of punctures, as a 

 rule, are made each year, and the amount of fresh work rather than 

 the total should be considered in determining the probable agent. 

 A tree 100 years old — a moderate age — might bear much sapsucker 

 work, even where the birds are very scarce and only a few holes were 

 drilled in it each year. When a great number of punctures are made 



1 Mom. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., I, 499, 1869. 



2 Bien. Rep. Commissioner Fish, and Game, Ind., p. 733, 1905-6. 



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Fig. 39.— Flicker. Not a sapsucker. Has black spot on breast, but top 

 of head from bill is not red. Has conspicuous white rump. 



