22 BIRDS OP CALIFORNIA AFFECTING FRUIT INDUSTRY. 



Beetles amounted in January to 3.5 percent, in November to 1.4 

 percent, in December to 0.7 percent, with none at all in the other 

 months. The average for the whole year is only 0.8 percent. No 

 larvse of wood-borers were found, and apparently this bird never aids 

 the hairy woodpecker in the good work of destroying these creatures. 

 The species eaten were mostly small leaf beetles (ChrysomelidaB) , with 

 a few weevils. 



Hemiptera (bugs) and Diptera (flies) were entirely wanting in the 

 stomachs examined. Caterpillars were present in two stomachs, both 

 taken in October. They amounted to 5 percent of the food of that 

 month. One stomach taken in February was entirely filled by a large 

 centipede. 



Vegetable food. — The vegetable part of the food of the red-breasted 

 sapsucker falls naturally into three divisions — fruit, seeds, and other 

 vegetable matter. As the bird is not present in the fruit-growing 

 sections of the State when fruit is ripe, it can not make great inroads 

 upon the orchard. While fruit aggregates nearly 17 percent, it is 

 mostly wild or of worthless varieties. Figs, whose seeds and pulp 

 were found in one stomach, were the only cultivated kind identified. 

 Several stomachs contained berries of the pepper tree (Schinus molle), 

 one contained cascara berries (RJiamnus calif ornicus) , and in several 

 were unidentified seeds and pulp. Seeds amount to about 9 percent, 

 and are those of the poison oak, with a few others. The miscellaneous, 

 item is made up almost entirely of cambium, or the inner bark of trees, 

 and amounts to about 11 percent of the whole food. 



SUMMARY. 



It is evident that the red-breasted sapsucker falls far below some 

 other members of its family in economic importance. It does not 

 prey upon the worst pests of the orchard and forest, but on the other 

 hand it does not feed on the products of the orchard or farm. It 

 injures trees by tapping holes in the bark and by stripping it off in 

 patches, for which reason this sapsucker may be considered more 

 harmful than beneficial. 



CALIFORNIA WOODPECKER. 



( Melanerpes formicivorus bairdi.) 



The California woodpecker is distributed throughout a large part 

 of the State, but is in the main confined to places where there is an 

 abundance of large oaks — trees for which it appears to have a special 

 liking and from which it derives much of its subsistence. Wherever 

 it lives it is usually abundant and the most noticeable element of the 

 bird fauna, attracting attention both by its loud cries and by its con- 

 spicuous flight. It is one of the few woodpeckers whose food is more 

 largely vegetable than animal. 



