640 
food are wild fruits of no importance and 
cambium (the layer just beneath the 
park of trees). In securing the cambium 
the bird does the damage above described. 
The yellow-bellied sapsucker, unlike 
other woodpeckers, thus does compara- 
tively little good and much harm. 
Downy Woodpecker 
Dryobates pubescens 
Length, six inches. Our smallest wood- 
pecker; spotted with black and white. 
Dark bars on the outer tail feathers dis- 
tinguish it from the similarly colored but 
larger hairy woodpecker. 
Range 
Resident in the United States and the 
forested parts of Canada and Alaska. 
Habits and Economic Status 
This woodpecker is commonly distrib- 
uted, living in woodland tracts, orchards 
and gardens. The bird has several char- 
acteristic notes, and, like the hairy 
woodpecker, is fond of beating on a dry 
resonant tree branch a tattoo which to 
appreciative ears has the quality of wood- 
land music. In a hole excavated in a 
dead branch the downy woodpecker lays 
four to six eggs. This and the hairy 
woodpecker are among our most valu- 
able allies, their food consisting of some 
of the worst foes of orchard and wood- 
Jand, which the woodpeckers are espe- 
cially equipped to dig out of dead and 
living wood. In the examination of 723 
stomachs of this bird, animal food, most- 
ly insects, was found to constitute 76 per 
cent of the diet and vegetable matter 24 
per cent. The animal food consists 
largely of beetles that bore into timber 
or burrow under the bark. Caterpillars 
amount to 16 per cent of the food and 
include many especially harmful species. 
Grasshopper eggs are freely eaten. The 
vegetable food of the downy woodpecker 
consists of small fruit and seeds, mostly 
of wild species. It distributes seeds of 
poison ivy, or poison oak, which is about 
the only fault of this very useful bird. 
Yellow-Billed Cuckoo 
Coccyzus americanus 
Length, about 12 inches. The yellow 
lower part of the bill distinguishes this 
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PRACTICAL HORTICULTURE 
bird from its near relative, the black- 
billed cuckoo. 
Range 
Breeds generally in the United States 
and Southern Canada; winters in South 
America. 
Habits and Economie Status 
This bird lives on the edges of wood- 
land, in groves, orchards, parks, and even 
in shaded village streets. It is some- 
times known as rain crow, because its 
very characteristic notes are supposed to 
foretell rain. The cuckoo has sly, furtive 
ways as it moves among the bushes or 
flits from tree to tree, and is much more 
often seen than heard. Unlike its Euro- 
pean relative, it does not lay its eggs in 
other birds’ nests, but builds a nest of 
its own. This is, however, a rather crude 
and shabby affair—hardly more than a 
platform of twigs sufficient to hold the 
greenish eggs. The cuckoo is extremely 
useful because of its insectivorous habits, 
especially as it shows a marked prefer- 
ence for the hairy caterpillars, which few 
birds eat. One stomach that was exam- 
ined contained 250 American tent cater- 
pillars; another, 217 fall webworms. In 
places where tent caterpillars are abun- 
dant they seem to constitute a large por- 
tion of the food of this and the black- 
billed cuckoo. 
Screech Owl 
Otus asio 
Length, about eight inches. Our small- 
est owl with ear tufts. There are two 
distinct phases of plumage, one grayish 
and the other bright rufous. 
Range 
Resident throughout the United States, 
Southern Canada, and Northern Mexico. 
Habits and Economic Status 
The little screech owl inhabits or- 
chards, groves and thickets, and hunts 
for its prey in such places as well as 
along hedgerows and in the open. Dur- 
ing warm spells in winter it forages 
quite extensively and stores up in some 
hollow tree considerable quantities of 
food for use during inclement weather. 
Such larders frequently contain enough 
Mice or other prey to bridge over a 
