50 
BY THE WAYSIDE 
see rows of holes around a limb or trunk 
of a tree so close together as to endanger 
the very life of the tree, be sure to put 
the blame where it belongs. It is the 
Sapsucker that did it. In the cases of 
the other woodpeckers a hole in the bark 
means a benefit to the tree because it in¬ 
dicates the removal of a wood borer whose 
work is doing great damage to the tree. 
But Mr. Sapsucker is after sap. So he 
dio-s a row of holes close together where 
he can watch them conveniently and 
drinks the sap from each in succession. 
Some careful observers say he sometimes 
drinks to excess, which we would natur¬ 
ally expect. He has been seen very 
much under the influence of mouutain 
ash sap, his feathers bedraggled and dis¬ 
arranged. 
The greatest harm which results from 
the Sapsucker’s depredations is that irate 
fruit tree growers mistake the Downy 
woodpecker for his unprincipled relative. 
Orchards may be occasionally injured by 
the Sapsucker, but they are continually 
benefitted by the Downy. Downy does 
not desert us with the coming of winter as 
do the Red-head and the Flicker. To¬ 
gether with the chickadee and the nut¬ 
hatch he forms a mighty, if diminutive 
triple alliance and they wage a ceaseless 
war upon the insect world. If there 
were only some way of estimating the 
crood done bv these tiny warriors they 
might come nearer being appreciated. 
The yellow under parts of the Sapsucker 
serves to distinguish him from the 
Downy. The Hairy Woodpecker is a 
much shyer bird, and is more commonly 
found in the depths of the woods. 
There are other interesting members of 
the family. In California is a wood¬ 
pecker called, by the Mexicans, the Car¬ 
penter. This California species has a 
unique method of keeping his supply of 
acorns. When he is not pressed with 
other duties he spends his time digging 
holes in trees and fitting acorns in them. 
Long practice has made his expert. 
Each acorn fits so exactly that no other 
creature can remove them and the Car¬ 
penter's reserve stock of acorns are as 
safe as if he had them locked up in his 
cellar. There is a woodpecker with 
three toes; a very great peculiarty among 
birds. 
Perhaps not more than a small frac¬ 
tion of the life habits of this interesting 
family of birds are known. Wouldn’t 
it be well for some of the Wayside read¬ 
ers to write us concerning the habits of 
the woodpeckers of their neighborhood? 
Bird Protection a Necessity. 
The welfare of the birds is a matter of 
great importance to you, reader, and to 
every man, woman, and child alive today. 
Were the birds exterminated it would 
mean to us, not merely a trifling incon¬ 
venience or the loss of dollars and cents, 
but want and famine, pestilence and 
death. 
You know that many birds are de¬ 
creasing in numbers and that the recent 
remarkable increase of destructive in¬ 
sects and other pests is attracting wide 
attention; but do you know that it is esti¬ 
mated that the birds in Massachusetts 
eat 21,000 bushels of insects a day, 
birds in Nebraska destrov 170 carloads 
daily, that a single species of hawk saves 
the Western farmers $57,600 annually by 
killing grasshoppers,-that the tree spar¬ 
rows of Iowa eat two and one-third tons 
of weed seeds daily, and that our native 
sparrows save the farmers of the country 
$35,000,000 annually by eating weed 
seeds, while they also save an immense 
;j 
loss by destroying insects? A vast sum 
might be saved if we could increase the : 
