INSECT DESTROYERS-WOODPECKERS. 
109 
quito, that feeds the trout that preys on the May fly that 
destroys the eggs that hatch the salmon that pampers the epi¬ 
cure, may occasion a scarcity of this latter fish in waters where 
he would otherwise be abundant. Thus all nature is linked 
together by invisible bonds, and every organic creature, how¬ 
ever low, however feeble, however dependent, is necessary to 
the well-being of some other among the myriad forms of life 
with which the Creator has peopled the earth. 
I have said that man has promoted the increase of the 
insect and the worm, by destroying the bird and the fish 
which feed upon them. Many insects, in the four different 
stages of their growth, inhabit in succession the earth, the 
water, and the air. In each of these elements they have their 
special enemies, and, deep and dark as are the minute recesses 
in which they hide themselves, they are pursued to the re¬ 
motest, obscurest corners by the executioners that nature has 
appointed to punish their delinquencies, and furnished with 
cunning contrivances for ferreting out the offenders and drag¬ 
ging them into the light of day. One tribe of birds, the wood¬ 
peckers, seems to depend for subsistence almost wholly on 
those insects which breed in dead or dying trees, and it is, 
perhaps, needless to say that the injury these birds do the 
forest is imaginary. They do not cut holes in the trunk of the 
tree to prepare a lodgment for a future colony of boring larvae, 
but to extract the worm which has already begun his mining 
labors. Hence these birds are not found where the forester 
removes trees as fast as they become fit habitations for such 
insects. In clearing new lands in the United States, dead 
trees, especially of the spike-leaved kinds, too much decayed 
to serve for timber, and which, in that state, are worth little 
for fuel, are often allowed to stand until they fall of them¬ 
selves. Such stubs, as they are popularly called, are filled 
with borers, and often deeply cut by the woodpeckers, whose 
strong bills enable them to penetrate to the very heart of the 
tree and drag out the lurking larvse. After a few years, the 
stubs fall, or, as wood becomes valuable, are cut and carried 
off for firewood, and, at the same time, the farmer selects for 
