94 
WOODPECKERS IN RELATION TO TREES. 
in one season, the tree is likely to be weakened or killed, and not a 
single instance is on record of any woodpecker in this country, other 
than a member of the genus Sphyrapicus, killing a tree by girdling it. 
Nor, as a rule, is the work of the hairy and downy woodpecker so 
much like that of the sapsuckers as not to be distinguishable from it. 
The \\ riter has observed the downy woodpecker at work in suspicions 
proximity to fresh drills resembling those made by sapsuckers. But 
upon examination these were found to go barely through the outer 
bark and not to the sapwood, as is true of sapsucker holes. Hence 
the punctures were not injurious. 
Mr. E. H. Forbush notes 1 that the 
perforations made by the downy [in 
red maple] differ from those of the 
sapsucker; and Weed and Dearborn 
seem to have had similar experience, 
as they say of the downy wood- 
pecker: " Although it bores holes in 
the bark of apple trees, it does not 
revisit them to suck the sap . . . 
and the holes seem usually not to 
injure the tree." 2 Prof. F. E. L. 
Beal corroborates this, saying that 
the holes made by this woodpecker 
reach only to the inner bark and 
that no protruding girdles or other 
deformations of the trunk are pro- 
duced. 
A very convincing bit of evidence 
bearing on this point is given by Dr. 
T. M. Brewer. He had experience 
in parts of the country where the 
sapsucker is not often seen, but 
where there are many punctured 
trees, conditions which cause the 
downy, hairy, and other woo< Ipeckers to be known as sapsuckers and 
to be persecuted. Upon becoming well acquainted with Sp/ojrapicus 
also, he wrote as follows: 
In April, L868, I visited -aniens in Racine, in company with Dr. Hoy, where these 
woodpeckers |i. e., sapsuckers] had every successive spring committed their ravages, 
and was eyewitness t<> their performance. Their punctures were unlike those <»f 
down] i, being much deeper, penetrating the inner hark, and being repeated 
in close proximity, . . . often resulting in the girdling and complete destruction of a 
tree, in -in,, garden of some considerable size all the mountain asfa and while pine 
Fia. 40.— California woodpecker. Not a sap- 
Bucker. Has black breasl spot, but head 
is not red from base of bin. 
i Useful Birds and their Protection, p. 2S6 7 [1907} 
m and Dearborn, v. Birds in their Relations to Man. |>. 185, 1903. 
