166 
BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
quest of food visit the trees in orchards and yards, their visits to these 
places are much less frequent than those of the little Downy. 
Both the Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers are called ‘‘ Sapsuckers’' 
by those who are unacquainted with birds, from the common belief that 
both subsist larg-ely on the sap of apple and other fruit trees. This 
popular, yet mistaken idea, has induced many farmers and fruit -growers 
to destroy these two species, as well as other woodpeckers, when found 
about their orchards. 
Wilson refers to this bird as “ a haunter of orchards and lover of apple 
trees, an eager hunter of insects, their eggs and larvae in old stumps 
and old rails, in rotten branches and crevices of the bark.” “ The food 
of this species consists principally of the eggs and larvae of injurious 
insects that are burrowing in the wood of our fruit and forest trees ; 
these he is enabled to obtain b}^ chiseling out a small hole with his 
powerful bill, and drawing them from their lurking places with his long 
barbed tongue. He also eats some small fruits and berries, but never, 
so far as I am aware, the buds oi- blossoms of trees, as some persons 
assert.” — E. A. Samuels. 
The food materials of nine of these woodpeckers examined by me are 
mentioned below : 
No. 
Date. 
Localitv. 
Food-Materiaes. 
1 
Nov. 1879 
Chester county, Pa 
Seeds of berries. 
2 
April 11, 1880 
Newark, Delaware 
Larvae and beetles. 
3 
June 13. 1880 
Chester county. Pa 
Spiders and dipterous insects. 
4 
Dec. 20, 1880 
Chester county, Pa 
Small seeds and particles of Indian corn. 
5 
Jan. 28, 1881. ....... 
Chester county, Pa 
Beetles. 
1; 
Mar. 10, 1881 
Chester county. Pa 
Numerous insects. 
7 
Sept. 13. 1881 
Chester county Pa 
Black ants and larvae. 
8 
May 18, 1883 
Chester county, Pa. , 
Black ants, diptera and beetles 
y 
Mar. 26. 1884, 
Chester county. Pa. 
Beetles and larvae. 
Dryobates pubescens (Linn). 
Downy AVooUpecker ; Sapsucker. 
Description {Plate 7 G\ 
Length about 63 inches ; extent about Hi ; outer tail feathers barred with black 
and white, otherwise same in color as D. villosus. 
Habitat . — Northern and eastern North America, from British Columbia and the 
eastern edge of the plains northward and eastward. 
This indefatigable little insect hunter, the smallest of all our wood- 
peckers, is a common resident in Pennsylvania. The timid disposition 
so frequently noticed in the preceding species is rarely, if ever, shown 
by the Downy Woodpeckers, which, at all seasons, are found frequent- 
ing our shade and fruit trees, and not unfrequently these little feathereds 
carpenters may be observed excavating nesting places in trees close to 
the habitations of man. Downy Woodpeckers subsist chiefly on various 
forms of insects, and when this food becomes scarce they feed often- 
times on the seeds of grasses and some few other plants; also, small 
