94 



WOODPECKERS IN RELATION TO TREES. 



in one season, the tree is likely to be weakened or killed, and not a 

 single instance is on record of any woodpecker in this country, other 

 than a member of the genus Sphyrapicus, killing a tree by girdling it. 

 Nor, as a rule, is the work of the hairy and downy woodpecker so 

 much like that of the sapsuckers as not to be distinguishable from it. 

 The writer has" observed the downy woodpecker at work in suspicious 

 proximity to fresh drills resembling those made by sapsuckers. But 

 upon examination these were found to go barely through the outer 

 bark and not to the sapwood, as is true of sapsucker holes. Hence 



the punctures were not injurious. 

 Mr. E. H. Forbush notes * that the 

 perforations made by the downy [in 

 red maple] differ from those of the 

 sapsucker; and Weed and Dearborn 

 seem to have had similar experience, 

 as they say of the downy wood- 

 pecker: "Although it bores holes in 

 the bark of apple trees, it does not 

 revisit them to suck the sap . . . 

 and the holes seem usually not to 

 injure the tree." 2 Prof. F. E. L. 

 Beal corroborates this, saying that 

 the holes made by this woodpecker 

 reach only to the inner bark and 

 that no protruding girdles or other 

 deformations of the trunk are pro- 

 duced. 



A very convincing bit of evidence 

 bearing on this point is given by Dr. 

 T. M. Brewer, lie had experience 

 in parts of the country where the 

 sapsucker is not often seen, but 

 where there are many punctured 

 trees, conditions which cause the 

 downy, hairy, and other woodpeckers to be known as sapsuckers and 

 to be persecuted. Upon becoming well acquainted with Sphyrapicus 

 also, he wrote as follows: 



In April. L868, 1 visited gardens in Racine, in company with J>r. Hoy, where these 

 woodpeckers [i. <■.. sapsuckers] had every successive spring committed their ravages, 

 and was eyewitness in their performance. Their punctures were unlike those of 

 pubescens (downy I, being much deeper, penetrating the inner bark, and being repeated 

 in close proximity. . . . often resulting in the girdling and complete destruction of a 

 tree. In one garden of Borne considerable size all the mountain ash and white pine 



Fig. 40.— California woodpecker. Not a sap- 

 sucker. lias black breast spot, but head 

 is not red from base of bill. 



■ Useful Birds and their Protection, p. 256 7[1907]. 



« Weed, i'. \i.. and Dearborn, N., Birds In their Relations to Man, p. 185, 1908, 



