11 WOODPECKERS IN RELATION TO TREES. 
openings into Large cavities unsuited for either nests or shelter. 
When occupied houses arc at lacked, the loud calls and racket made 
by the birds, especially in the early morning, are very annoying to 
the inmates. 
The California woodpecker (Mdanerpes f. bairdi), besides making 
holes in bouses for nests or sleeping quarters, also pecks in cornices 
a multitude of small holes, wherein acorns are wedged. The bird 
usually stoics the mast in dead limbs of trees, but when acorns abound 
near buildings it naturally takes advantage of the large exposed sur- 
face of dead wood as exactly suited to its purposes. This hoarding 
instinct undoubtedly has for its basis the provision of food for future 
use, but the woodpeckers store up immense quantities of acorns 
which they never eat, most of which fall to the lot of the squirrels and 
jays. 
II. W. Henshaw found the California woodpecker making much 
use of buildings for storage purposes near Ukiah, Mendocino County, 
Cal. lie was informed that one schoolhouse (PI. IV, fig. 2) was so 
much injured in a season or two that it was replaced by a new build- 
ing in preference to making the necessary repairs. 
PREVENTION OF DAMAGE BY WOODPECKERS. 
The prevention of damage by woodpeckers (except sapsuckers) 
rarely necessitates destruction of the birds. Moreover, woodpeckers 
are so valuable as conservators of trees that the public should not be 
deprived of their services. 
It has been claimed that creosote insures telegraph poles against 
the attacks of woodpeckers, but Mr. Weiss presents evidence to the 
contrary in the paper previously quoted from (pp. 11-13), and Mr. 
C. T. Day says concerning results in Sonora: 
Some of the creosoted poles about 9 or 10 inches in diameter have been picked, 
leaving an outside shell, hi two or three instances the linesmen have found the 
inside of poles entirely eaten away . . . and found birds' nests inside, [t is a com- 
mon expression with the Linesmen that the woodpeckers ^ r et fat on creosote. We 
tried Bpraying with carbolic acid in places where their holes were just begun, but so 
far we have been unable to notice any difference. We are now substituting a Texas 
pine pole, burnetized, with a creosoted butt, which is claimed to be so much harder 
than creosote that birds will have considerable difficulty in getting into it. We have 
aome 200 poles up, but as yet they do not show any marks. 
The results of experiments of this kind will he awaited with inter- 
est. It will he fortunate, indeed, if some one or other of the preserva- 
tive treatments which are applied to nearly all poles now being se1 is 
found to protect them from woodpeckers. As telegraph poles are 
usually perforated by woodpeckers for the purpose of securing nesting 
Bites, the providing of nest boxes may prove a comparatively cheap 
and ea^y .solution of the difficulty. If nest hoxes he supplied and 
