34 FOOD OF WOODPECKERS OF UNITED STATES. 



Animal food. — Beetles amount to 22.01 per cent. Nearly all were 

 in the larval stage, and evidently were dug out of dead and decaying 

 wood. They belong to the Cerambycidre, the Buprestidse, and the 

 Elateridaa, all of them wood-borers, with some Lucanidas and Scara- 

 bseidse, many species of which breed in rotting timber. Carabidse, 

 or useful ground-beetles, were found in only 6 stomachs and amount 

 to a small fraction of 1 per cent. 



Ants aggregate 39.91 per cent and constitute more than half of the 

 animal food. They were found in 48 stomachs, and in one, 2,600 

 were counted; in another, 2,080; and in a third, 2,000. They are 

 mostly of the larger species that live in decaying timber. These two 

 items, beetles and ants, make up the bulk of the animal food, 61.92 

 per cent. It is evident that they are the objects of the bird's search 

 when he is foraging over the trunks of dead trees or logs, and that 

 other insects are taken only incidentally. Flies, caterpillars, frag- 

 ments of cockroaches and their egg cases .(ootheca), bits of grass- 

 hoppers, some sawfTies, and white ants, no one of which amounts to a 

 respectable percentage, aggregate 10.96 per cent, the balance of the 

 animal food. 



The following is a list of insects identified in the stomachs: 



COLEOPTERA. 



Anisodactylus sp. Upis ceramboides. 



Allorhina nitida. Chalcophora sp. 



Cyclocephala sp. 



HYMENOPTERA (ANTS). 



Camponotus pennsylvanicus. Cremastogaster Iseviuscula. 



Camponotus herculeanus. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 



Caterpillar (Scolecocampa liburna). 



Vegetable food. — The largest item of vegetable food, and in fact the 

 only one of importance, is wild fruit, which amounts to 22.56 per cent, 

 and of which 19 species were identified. This is probably eaten in 

 every month, but in the stomachs examined none was found in April, 

 May, or June ; but as only 6 stomachs were collected in those months, 

 the record is not conclusive. The only part of the fruit which can 

 possibly have any economic interest is some Kubus seeds found in 1 

 stomach and some unidentified seeds in 5, but probably these were wild 

 like the others. Seeds of poison ivy (or poison oak), poison sumac, 

 dwarf sumac, a little cambium, and mast, with some rubbish, alto- 

 gether amount to 4.56 per cent and complete the vegetable food. 



The following vegetable food was found in the stomachs : 



