DEFENSIVE MEASURES AGAINST SAPSUCKERS. 
97 
This advice applies to the planting of orchards also, as the risk of 
damage by frost is lessened by planting on north slopes. It is said that 
fine wire netting lias been used in some localities to protect the 
trunks of fruit trees, but this is impracticable for large numbers of 
trees, while advice as to methods of planting does not apply to trees 
at present subject to sapsucker attack. Good results have been 
obtained by plastering cow droppings or fish glue around trees where 
the sapsuckers have worked, and the wounds may be made to heal 
more readily by cutting out the injured parts and covering with 
grafting wax. 
When preventive measures fail and the extent of the damage war- 
rants it. the birds must be killed. But such extreme measures should 
be adopted only when 
orchards or other valu- 
able tree plantations 
are attacked, and ex- 
treme care should be 
taken to kill only the 
injurious species. 
It does not appear to 
be difficult to poison 
sapsuckers. Mr. Ell- 
wood Cooper has kindly 
furnished details of a 
method of poisoning 
used successfully by 
himself in California, 
of which the following 
is the substance : I took 
about one-half pint of 
honey and pulverized 
the crystals of strych- 
nine, using about a 
coffeespoonful of the powder and making a thorough mixture. With 
a wooden paddle I smeared the mixture around the trunk about 2 or 
3 inches above the last ring of holes made by the birds. It proved 
very effective. This method has the advantage of insuring the 
destruction of the sapsuckers, while the risk of destroying other birds 
is reduced to a minimum. 
The method of poisoning may be stated in more exact terms as 
follows: Mix thoroughly an eighth of an ounce of powdeied strychnine 
(the alkaloid, which is not easily soluble, and hence will not flavor the 
99068°— Bull. 39—11 7 
Fig. 43.- 
-Red-headed woodpecker. Not a sapsucker. 
spot on breast. 
Has no black 
