BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA 
175 
Deland and other places where numerous orange trees were thriving, I 
was informed by the orange-growers that the Red-bellied Woodpeckers 
oftentimes destroyed large numbers of oranges when they had matured 
and were ready for picking; also, that “they damaged the orange trees 
by boring holes in them and sucking the sap.” I had but little oppor¬ 
tunity of making a careful study of this orange-eating habit, so greatly 
talked about, owing to the fact that when I first visited these localities 
it was late in February, or after the oranges had been picked and shipped 
north. In the month of March, 1885,1 camped a few days at “Bluffton,” 
near Yolusia, in an orange grove, owned by Mr. Bird, of New York city 
This grove contained about thirty acres of trees, which were loaded with 
fruit, then being picked for market. Through the kindness of Mr. 
Bird and his overseer, Mr. Curtis, I collected twenty-six Red-bellied 
Woodpeckers in this orange grove, eleven of these birds had fed to a 
more or less extent on oranges. 
Three of the eleven stomachs taken from specimens killed in the fore¬ 
noon, soon after daylight, contained only orange pulp. Eight stomachs 
showed, in addition to orange pulp, insects and berries. The stomachs 
of the remaining fifteen birds contained no traces of oranges, but re¬ 
vealed chiefly insects, a few berries and seeds. I examined two dozen 
or more oranges which had been attacked by the Woodpeckers, and 
found that all had been bored about midway between the stem and blos¬ 
som end. These holes, always round, varied greatly in size. The birds 
usually, I think, pick off the skin from a space about the size of an ordi¬ 
nary five-cent piece, and then eat out the pulp. In an orchard at Hawk- 
insville, near Deland Landing, on the St. John’s river, I oftentimes, in 
the month of April, 1885, found oranges which had been evidently over¬ 
looked when the crop was gathered, and in most instances observed that 
they were bored. In this orchard, on one occasion, I saw a Red-bellied 
Woodpecker eating an orange. He evidently recognized the fact that 
it was about the last of the season, as he had enlarged the opening suf¬ 
ficiently that his head was almost entirely hidden in the yellow skin, 
from the sides of which he picked the few remaining particles of pulp. 
I was shown orange trees that these “ Sapsuckers” were said to have 
bored, these borings, however, did not appear to injure the trees, as they 
seemed to me to be equally as flourishing as other trees whose trunks 
showed no marks of a woodpecker’s bill. 
