HAIRY WOODPECKER. 15 



are eaten most in winter and early spring, but every month has a 

 good percentage. Hymenoptera other than ants are taken very 

 irregularly and in small quantities. In September somewhat more 

 than 5 per cent were eaten, but stomachs taken in May and December 

 contained none at all, and the average for the year is but a little more 

 than 1 per cent. In one stomach were found sawfly larvae, insects 

 which do not appear to be eaten extensively by birds. 



Caterpillars are the next most important item of the hairy's food. 

 They amount to a little less than 10 per cent, and were found in 

 every month. The greater number were taken in August, when they 

 aggregated nearly 19 per cent, while March showed the least, a little 

 less than 2 per cent. Many of them were wood-boring species dug 

 out from the wood, like the beetle larvae. Prof. F. M. Webster states 

 that he has seen a hairy woodpecker successfully peck a hole through 

 the parchment-like covering of the cocoon of a Cecropia moth and 

 devour the contents. On examining more than 20 cocoons in a 

 grove of box elders, he found only 2 uninjured. 



Bugs (Hemiptera) are evidently not a favorite food, as they were 

 found only to the extent of 2.41 per cent for the year. June ap- 

 pears to be the month of greatest consumption, with somewhat less 

 than 8 per cent, but four months show none at all, and bugs are very 

 irregularly distributed through the rest of the year. Plant-lice 

 (aphids) were found in 2 stomachs and scales in 4. One of the 

 latter was identified as the cherry or plum scale (Eulecanium cera- 

 sifex). Orthoptera, that is, grasshoppers, crickets, and cockroaches, 

 are rarely eaten by the hairy. A few eggs, probably those of tree 

 crickets, and the egg cases (ootheca) of cockroaches, constitute the 

 bulk of this food. These with a few miscellaneous insects amount to 

 a little more than 2 per cent for the year. Spiders with their cocoons 

 of eggs, including one jointed spider (Solpugidse), and a few millepeds, 

 were eaten to the extent of about 3.5 per cent, which completes the 

 quota of animal food. 



The following is a list of insects identified in the food of the hairy 

 woodpecker: 



COLEOPTERA. 



Agonoderus pallipes. Nyctobates pennsylvanica. 



Ips fasciatus . Upis ceramboides. 



Melanotics cribricollis . Boletotherus bifurcus. 



Chrysobothris sp. Boletophagus corticola. 



Cymatodera undulata. Dendroides sp. 



Lachnosterna sp Dorytomus mucidus. 



Ergates sp. Tomicus cazlatus. 



Asemum moestum, Polygraphus rufipennis. 

 Eleodes sp. 



HYMENOPTERA. 



Ant (Camponotus pictus). 



