124 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
[AtrtJ. 15. 1896. 
miles each month during the grasshopper season is about 
$34. 
"Nor are the other components of the insect food lees 
important except in quantity. Some of the most injuri- 
ous beetles form a considerable percentage of the stomach 
MEADOW LARK. 
contents." Among other insects eaten by the meadow 
lark are May beetles, ants, bugs, caterpillars, curculios 
and leaf beetles. In conclusion Prof. Baal says, "Far 
from being injurious, it is one of the most useful allies to 
agriculture, standing almost without a peer as a destroyer 
of noxious insects." 
Woodpeckers.— Red- Headed Woodpecker. 
The redhead eats more grasshoppers than any other 
woodpecker. It also assists in destroying June bugs and 
weevills. In the North its main food is beechnuts. It 
does some harm by eating grain and fruit, but not enough 
BBD-HEADED WOODPECKER. 
to amount to much. As it eats a large quantity of wild 
fruit, it could probably be diverted from the cultivated 
varieties by planting wild ones where they do not exist. 
The best would probably be dogwood, mulberry, elder- 
berry, choke cherry and wild black cherry. 
Sapsucker. 
The sapsucker has the habit of drilling holes in the bark 
of trees, and, as his name would indicate, sucks the sap 
that exudes from the tree. But this is not all, nor does it 
doom him to disfavor. Now and then an individual sap- 
sucker may girdle and kill an ornamental birch on a lawn; 
HAIRY WOODPECKEtt. 
but for one which does that, numbers are at work destroy- 
ing the insects that gather at the sap on the hardy forest 
trees which the woodpecker will not harm. A description 
of the sapsucker's performance says, "As the sap exudes 
from the newly-made punctures, thousands of flies, yellow 
jackets and other insects congregate about the place, till 
the hum of their wings suggests a swarm of bees. If now 
the tree be watched, the woodpecker will soon be seen to 
return and alight over the part of the girdle which he has 
most recently punctured. Here he remains with motion- 
less body and feeds upon the choicest species from a host 
of insects within easy reach." 
Some sapsuckers have been experimented with to find 
oiit if they could live principally on syrup, but in each 
instance have died from diet. Stomach examinations 
bear Gttt tfUe t§|tlmo»f s Tkpm^mQM^^^. iwly a» ^« 
sect eater. Thirty-six per cent, of his solid food consists 
of ants. He also destroys wasps, beetles, bugs, flies, 
grasshoppers and crickets. He eats more flies than any 
0 f 1 1^ 
other woodpecker. To keep him from ornamental trees 
it ruight be well to plant the dogwood, black alder, Vir- 
ginia creeper, wild black cherry and juniper, 
Downy Woodpecker. 
This little woodpecker, the smallest of the 
family, has been accused of eating fruit, but 
in 140 stomachs examined apple was found 
in only two and strawberries in one. On the 
other hand, almost 75 per cent, of tho bird's 
food is insects. Eleven woodpeckers taken in 
Kansas in winter contained 10 per cent, of 
grasshopper eggs. The little bird also destroys 
May beetles, plant lice and ants. A single 
wood- borer will often hill an entire tree, and 
one-fifth of the downy's animal food consists of 
caterpillars, many of which bore into wood 
and live on stems and leaves. Indeed, the 
downy is the most beneficial of all the useful 
woodpecker family. 
Hairy Woodpecker. 
The hairy comes next to the downy in usefulness. It 
eats a large number of beetles and caterpillars, almost no 
grain, and only wild fruits. Sixty-eight per cent, of its 
food is animal, including ants, beetles, bugs, grasshoppers 
and spiders. 
Flicker. 
Nearly half of the food of the flicker is ants. Three 
thousand were found in one stomach, As ants spread 
plant lice, destroy timber and infest houses, the flicker is 
certainly a useful bird. It does good work in other ways 
THKK-BORING 
LARVA. 
FJjtCKEB. 
h^s been 
stomachs 
also. Like many innocent birds, the flicker 
accused of corn-eating, but only five out of 230 
contained any corn. 
Prof. Beal, hiving spoken of the good work the wood- 
peckers did in Nebraska at the time of the grasshopper 
devastation, says of the downy, hairy and flicker: "Not 
one of the trio shows a questionable trait, and they should 
be protected and encouraged in every possible way." 
A Bull Caribou Without Antlers. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
According to your request, I send more details of the 
caribou without antlers reported in your issue of July 25. 
A9 to its age by the teeth, it was past four years, having a 
full mouth. It was alone, was in full flesh, its hide un- 
scarred by combats, its neck thin like that of a cow. Its 
hoofs, too, were full and sharp for the season, hence I 
conclude it was not in the rut. In my previous note for 
"indentation" read "indication." Pine Teee. 
Commissioner Whitaker's Outing-. 
Fish Cowviissioner Herschel Whitake?, D^vfifoit, 
has gone off on a six weeks' ^a'tnping, hunting and fishinsg 
trip in Colorado and Wyoming. This, Mr. Whitak^r gays:, 
is the first rest and (divorce from business h« has Qv^^hj^d 
wUgh m to say itj wijl b§ e»joye§ tq iji^^ full, • 
HORN SNAKE EVIDENCE. 
Mississippi, July 8. — Editor Forest and Stream: I have 
captured and now have in possession a real, genuine, 
bona fide stinging snake of the most approved pattern. 
It cost me an hour's hard and hot work, with two 
npgrops assisting, to get him out of a thicket of weeds 
and bushes and reduce him to a state of captivity — that 
is corralled in a sack with the mouth tied up. 
It also cost me $1.75 in cash to secure the aid of the 
negroes. 
vVhile battling with this monster of destruction and 
trying to get a string around him among the weeds and 
briers, and nfter getting him noosed, the negroes saw his 
sting repeatedly, and one of the negroes knew a man, to- 
wit, Harry Johnson, who had been stung by a snake of 
this variety and who died in twenty-five minutes in' con- 
sequence. 
Col. D. M. Russell, a prominent gentleman of this 
neighborhood, and likewise Mr. Frank Moore, assured me 
most positively that these snakes do possess stings, which 
they use with deadly effect. They knew this to be a fact, 
being familiar with the snake and having seen its sting. 
To-day, when I was getting the snake out of a box and 
securing him for examination, which I did by tying him 
head and tail and in the middle of a long stick, Mr. Al- 
corn and Mr, Meek, likewise Mrs. Mosby, the landlady, 
all saw his sting plainly as he flirted his tail around. An- 
other strong symptom which I failed to mention; when I 
first approached the snake before his capture and endeav- 
ored to drag him into the road with a whip handle, as he 
crawled away the end of his tail was curled up in a little 
vertical curve, something after the manner of the scorpion 
when disturbed. 
Nevertheless, and notwithstanding this cloud of wit- 
nesses and circumstantial evidence, I soon found that I 
could take the end of his tail between my two bare fin- 
gers and squeeze it with perfect impunity, as in fact this 
much maligned reptile is one of the most harmless of 
creatures, without either capacity or disposition to do in- 
jury to anything larger than a frog, which he would 
doubtless swallow on occasion. 
This specimen is 4ft. Sin, long, with size and shape sim- 
ilar to the chicken snake. His body is of uniform color, 
not quite black, but dark, with a tinge of wine color 
underneath; the ground color is scarlet, with irregular 
transverse bars of dark bluish color. These bars, instead 
of going straight arross, have a jog, or offset, at the 
median line. 
The snake crawls with its head and neck very close to 
the ground, and slightly flattened. It has a disposition to 
hide its head when disturbed, and flirt its tail around 
when forced to activity, which characteristics doubtless 
account for this myth of its being armed with a sting. 
The dentition is similar to that of the other non- ven- 
omous constrictors of these parts. 
The body is covered with scales about ^in. wide, axid 
glistens as if the skin had been varnished. 
My specimen is slow and deliberate in his movements 
and very docile. He is entirely undemonstrative, making 
no effort to inflict injury either with head or tail, and 
can be handled with perfect freedom. 
And now I hope the stinging snake myth has been final- 
ly disposed of. The foregoing illustrates the proneness 
of the human mind to yield to deception, and lends its 
evidence in support of my position, to wit, that all the 
acts in the daily lives of the great majority of the human 
family are shaped and controlled by delusions of one kind 
or another. Coahoma.. 
[This snake, so often referred to in these columns, is no 
doubt Farancia abacura.] 
COPPERHEADS. 
Prince's Bay, N. Y., Aug. 3. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
It is really amusing to read the article by Forked Deer 
about the copperhead. It is a pity that he could not have 
had in the first twenty years of his life the information that 
I am going to give him now, but we are not too old to learn. 
1 used to live in Massachusetts myself, and when I came 
away from there I left lots of animals and reptiles that I 
had never seen. But I still believe they lived there. 
The copperheads den with rattlesnakes on the lower 
end of Mount Tom, on the southerly exposure of the 
mountain, in a large ledge composed of trap rock. This 
ledge is nearly at the top of the mountain, about 1,000ft. 
above the sea. 
About the first of May, when the sun begins to strike in 
on those rocks, the copperheads and rattlesnakes begin to 
crawl out, I l ave been there myself and have seen them 
caught with a pair of wooden tongs about 8ft, long, and 
those we could not catch with tongs were shot. Cop- 
perheads are found on the south side of Mount Tom 
for a distance of four .or five miles, and they are found in 
the meadows along the trout brook, and on top of the 
mountain at the same reason of the year. 
You must bear in mind that Mount Tom is in Massachu- 
setts, But the war on rattlesnakes and copperheads has 
thinned them out and very few are seen of late years, but 
there are a few killed every year. If Forked Deer doubts 
the truth of this article let him write to William Street, 
proprietor of the Eyrie House, Mount Tom, Mass, • Mr, 
Street always has a few rattlesnakes and copperheads on 
exhibition at his summer resort. In reading this article 
don't be misled. The tongs we caught the snakes with 
were about 8ft. long, not the copperheads. The Mount 
Tom copperhead rarely reaches over 3ft. in length. 
As to color, the copperhead is rightly named from the 
end of his nose to the tip of his tail. A, L. H, 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
That the copperhead is very rare in New England can- 
not be questioned, but that Massachusetts has a few I 
know from experience. The only one I ever met in his 
native haunts I came upon suddenly while creeping up to 
some very shy birds on a ridge of hills a few miles from 
my home in Canton. I had come within 2ft, of the snake 
and should have stepped directly on him had I not while 
looking out for dried sticks seen his head sticking from^ 
under some leaves. The head was the only part in sight, 
the rest being completely covered by dry leaves, butldici 
not even raise my gun to my shoulder in order to kill my: 
first snake of a large number I had handled and exami 
ined. The instant I saw the head I recognized it from" 
descijriptiors I had read. 
Th^t was several years ago and I heard of no otheret 
unt|l last year, when agme meii employed on t^ie Blue Sil^ 
Reaarvation of the MapaohiM^ttsi Metjr opoU^^R Pwfe C^qtoh 
