DOWJiY WOODPECKER. 
165 
''sarly the surface of the ground up to the first fork, 
^Rd sometimes far beyond it, the whole hark of many 
®Pple-trees is perforated in this manner, so as to appear 
“•s if made by successive discharges of buck-shot ; and 
little woodpecker, the subject of the present ac- 
•^aunt, is the principal perpetrator of this supposed 
fiiischief, — 1 say supposed, for so far from these perfo- 
•^tions of the bark being ruinous, they are not only 
Wmless, but, I have good reason to believe, really 
*'6neticial to the health and fertility of the tree. I 
^«ave it to the philosophical l)Otanist to account for 
^*iis; hut the fact 1 am confident of. In more than 
fifty orchards which I have myself carefully examined, 
those trees which were marked by the woodpecker 
(for some trees they never touch, perhaps because 
penetrated by insects,) were uniformly tlie most 
thriviiiir, and seemingly the most productive; many ot 
these vvere upwards of sixty years old, their trunks 
completely covered with holes, while the branches 
"'ere broad, luxuriant, and loaded with fruit, fit 
fiocayed trees, more than three-foiu-ths were untouched 
hy the woodpecker. Several intelligent farmers, with 
'"hom I have conversed, caiididljr aclpowlcdge the truth 
of these observations, and with justice look npon^ these 
oftds as beneficial ; but the most common opinion is, 
(hat they bore the trees to suck the sap, and so destroy 
>ts Vegetation ; though pine and other resinous trees, 
O" the juices of which it is not pretended they fceil 
">•« often found equally perforated. Were the sap of 
‘he tree their object, the saccharine juice o* t“e uircli, 
‘he suo-.ar maple, and several others, would be much 
•"ore inviting, because more sweet and nourishing than 
‘hat of either the pear or apple-tree ; but I have not 
"hserved one mark on the former for ten thousand that 
*"ay be seen on the latter; besides, the early part of 
*P'-iug is the season when the sap flows most abiin- 
''"ntlV ; whereas it is only during the months of iM'p- 
f-eniber October, and November, that woodpeckers are 
""en so indefati’gahly engaged in orchards, probing 
*"ery crack and crevice, boring through the hark, and 
