64 WOODPECKERS IN RELATION TO TREES. 
White fib (Abies concolor). The defects are one-fourth to 1 inch 
long, filled with resin deposit and giving rise to fat streaks extending 
a fool or more along the grain. Many layers of wood over the wound 
have curly grain. The blemishes are of no consequence for coarse 
structural work, but destroy the value of the wood for ornamental 
purposes (Oregon, A. M. 111). 
Western hemlock {Tsuga heterophyEa). — A specimen of this 
wood collected at Detroit, Oreg. (II.), shows reddish to black resinous 
scais 1 to 3j inches long, and the wood immediately over the wound 
gnarled and distorted, and one or two annual rings impregnated with a 
black crystalline resin deposit. The smaller blemishes produced by 
sapsucker work are practically identical with those described by IT. E. 
Burke as black check, which is caused "by an injury to the cambium 
. . . by the hemlock I) ark 
maggot, Oheilosia alaskensis." 
Mr. Burke says: "Timber badly 
affected with this defect is 
nearly worthless for finishing, 
turning, staves, and wooden- 
ware, for which it would other- 
wise be excellent." * But inju- 
ries by sapsuckers generally 
occur on a larger scale and 
consequently are more damag- 
Fia. 12.— Effects of sapsucker work on wood of bald \j\& Specimens of western 
express {Taiodium distkhum). Checks and stains. ° . . ,, .. .._ ._ . 
hemlock collected by Mr. Burke 
at Hoquiam, Wash. (II. 2167a), show the removal by sapsuckers of 
long vertical strips of bark, exposing the sapwood (PL VIII, fig. 3). 
This weathers to a dark color and when healed over persists as a darkly 
stained area from 2 to 3 inches wide and up to several feet long with 
more or less resin deposit, making a thin brittle layer in the wood 
along the plane of which splitting easily occurs (PI. VIII, fig. 5). 
The defect is extreme, both as to weakness and unsightliness, and 
when abundant and scattered throughout the wood, as sapsucker 
blemishes usually are, must render the wood valueless for all struc- 
tural purposes. Besides the direct injuries to western hemlock by 
sapsuckers, their pecks in the bark furnish entrance to bark maggots. 
Bald cypress (Taxodium distichum). —Specimens from Boardman, 
N. C. (II.), show dark stains produced by sapsucker wounds in cypress 
and distort ion of t he grain in several annual rings, some of which ^ive 
a bird's-eye appearance in tangential section. Pieces of cypress From 
Cottonport, La., have numerous black stains (fig. 12) from one-fourth 
to l j inches iii length and often nearly contiguous, [n some cases the 
boles drilled by the Bapsuckcrs have not healed readily and have left 
1 Bureau of Entomology, Circular Mo, 61, p. I, 1906, 
