144 



RED-HEADED WOODPECKER. 



exist ; they must therefore be necessary. If their merits and use- 

 fulness be found, on examination, to preponderate against their 

 vices, let us avail ourselves of the former, while we guard as well 

 as we can against the latter. 



Tho this bird occasionally regales himself on fruit, yet his na- 

 tural and most usual food are insects, particularly those numerous 

 and destructive species that penetrate the bark and body of the 

 tree to deposit their eggs and larvse, the latter of which are well 

 known to make immense havoc. That insects are his natural food 

 is evident from the construction of his wedge-formed bill, the length, 

 elasticity and figure of his tongue, and the strength and position of 

 his claws ; as well as from his usual habits. In fact, insects form 

 at least two thirds of his subsistence; and his stomach is scarcely 

 ever found without them. He searches for them with a dexterity 

 and intelligence, I may safely say, more than human; he perceives 

 by the exterior appearance of the bark where they lurk below; 

 when he is dubious he rattles vehemently on the outside with his 

 bill, and his acute ear distinguishes the terrified vermin shrinking 

 within to their inmost retreats, where his pointed and barbed tongue 

 soon reaches them. The masses of bugs, caterpillars and other 

 larvse, which I have taken from the stomachs of these birds, have 

 often surprised me. These larvae, it should be remembered, feed 

 not only on the buds, leaves and blossoms, but on the very vege- 

 table life of the tree, the alburnum, or newly forming bark and 

 wood; the consequence is that whole branches and whole trees 

 decay under the silent ravages of these destructive vermin; wit- 

 ness the late destruction of many hundred acres of pine trees in 

 the north eastern parts of South Carolina;^' and the thousands of 

 peach trees that yearly decay from the same cause. Will any one 

 say, that taking half a dozen, or half a hundred, apples from a 



* In one place, on a tract of two thousand acres of pine land, on the Sampit river, near 

 Georgetown, at least ninety trees in every hundred were destroyed by this pernicious insect, 

 a small, black, winged bug;, resembling the weave], but somewhat longer. 



