DOWNY WOODPECKER. jgj 



■when he flies off, or alights on another tree, he utters a rather 

 shriller cry, composed of nearly the same kind of note, quickly 

 reiterated. In fall and winter, he associates with the titmouse, 

 creeper, &c, both in their wood and orchard excursions ; and 

 usually leads the van. Of all our woodpeckers, none rid the 

 apple trees of so many vermin as this, digging off the moss 

 which the negligence of the proprietor had suffered to accu- 

 mulate, and probing every crevice. In fact, the orchard is his 

 favourite resort in all seasons ; and his industry is unequalled, 

 and almost incessant, which is more than can be said of any 

 other species we have. In fall, he is particularly fond of boring 

 the apple trees for insects, digging a circular hole through the 

 bark, just sufficient to admit his bill ; after that a second, third, 

 &c, in pretty regular horizontal circles round the body of the 

 tree ; these parallel circles of holes are often not more than an 

 inch or an inch and a half apart, and sometimes so close together, 

 that I have covered eight or ten of them at once with a dollar. 

 From nearly the surface of the ground up to the first fork, and 

 sometimes far beyond it, the whole bark of many apple trees is 

 perforated in this manner, so as to appear as if made by succes- 

 sive discharges of buckshot ; and our little woodpecker, the 

 subject of the present account, is the principal perpetrator of 

 this supposed mischief, — I say, supposed ; for so far from these 

 perforations of the bark being ruinous, they are not only 

 harmless, but, I have good reason to believe, really beneficial 

 to the health and fertility of the tree. I leave it to the philo- 

 sophical botanist to account for this ; but the fact I am con- 

 fident of. In more than fifty orchards which I have myself 

 carefully examined, those trees which were marked by the 

 woodpecker (for some trees they never touch, perhaps because 

 not penetrated by insects) were uniformly the most thriving, 

 and seemingly the most productive : many of these were up- 

 wards of sixty years old, their trunks completely covered with 

 holes, while the branches were broad, luxuriant, and loaded 

 with fruit. Of decayed trees, more than three-fourths were 

 untouched by the woodpecker. Several intelligent farmers, 



VOL. I. L 



