Produced by Bryan Ness, Steve Read and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
[Illustration]
THE WOODPECKERS
BY
FANNIE HARDY ECKSTORM
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
[Illustration]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1901
COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY FANNIE HARDY ECKSTORM
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_To_ MY FATHER MR. MANLY HARDY _A Lifelong Naturalist_
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
FOREWORD: THE RIDDLERS 1
I. HOW TO KNOW A WOODPECKER 4
II. HOW THE WOODPECKER CATCHES A GRUB 9
III. HOW THE WOODPECKER COURTS HIS MATE 15
IV. HOW THE WOODPECKER MAKES A HOUSE 20
V. HOW A FLICKER FEEDS HER YOUNG 24
VI. FRIEND DOWNY 28
VII. PERSONA NON GRATA. (YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER) 33
VIII. EL CARPINTERO. (CALIFORNIAN WOODPECKER) 46
IX. A RED-HEADED COUSIN. (RED-HEADED WOODPECKER) 55
X. A STUDY OF ACQUIRED HABITS 60
XI. THE WOODPECKER'S TOOLS: HIS BILL 68
XII. THE WOODPECKER'S TOOLS: HIS FOOT 77
XIII. THE WOODPECKER'S TOOLS: HIS TAIL 86
XIV. THE WOODPECKER'S TOOLS: HIS TONGUE 99
XV. HOW EACH WOODPECKER IS FITTED FOR HIS OWN
KIND OF LIFE 104
XVI. THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN 110
APPENDIX 113
A. KEY TO THE WOODPECKERS OF NORTH AMERICA 114
B. DESCRIPTIONS OF THE WOODPECKERS OF
NORTH AMERICA 117
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Flicker (colored) _Frontispiece_
Boring Larva 10
Indian Spear 12
Solomon Islander's Spear 13
Downy Woodpecker (colored) _facing_ 28
Bark showing Work of Sapsucker 34
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (colored) _facing_ 34
Trunk of Tree showing Work of Californian Woodpecker 47
Californian Woodpecker (colored) _facing_ 48
Red-headed Woodpecker (colored) _facing_ 56
Head of the Lewis's Woodpecker 59
Head of Ivory-billed Woodpecker 70
Foot of Woodpecker 77
Diagram of Right Foot 79
Foot of Three-toed Woodpecker 80
Tail of Hairy Woodpecker 86
Tails of Brown Creeper and Chimney Swift 87
Middle Tail Feathers of Flicker, Ivory-billed
Woodpecker, and Hairy Woodpecker 89
Diagram of Curvature of Tails of Woodpeckers 90
Patterns of Tails 91
Under Side of Middle Tail Feather of
Ivory-billed Woodpecker 97
Tongue of Hairy Woodpecker 99
Tongue-bones of Flicker 100
Skull of Woodpecker, showing Bones of Tongue 101
Hyoids of Sapsucker and Golden-fronted Woodpecker 102
Diagram of Head of a Flicker 113
_The colored illustrations are by Louis Agassiz Fuertes.
The text cuts are from drawings by John L. Ridgway._
THE WOODPECKERS
FOREWORD: THE RIDDLERS
Long ago in Greece, the legend runs, a terrible monster called the
Sphinx used to waylay travelers to ask them riddles: whoever could not
answer these she killed, but the man who did answer them killed her and
made an end of her riddling.
To-day there is no Sphinx to fear, yet the world is full of unguessed
riddles. No thoughtful man can go far afield but some bird or flower or
stone bars his way with a question demanding an answer; and though many
men have been diligently spelling out the answers for many years, and we
for the most part must study the answers they have proved, and must
reply in their words, yet those shrewd old riddlers, the birds and
flowers and bees, are always ready for a new victim, putting their heads
together over some new enigma to bar the road to knowledge till that,
too, shall be answered; so that other men's learning does not always
suffice. So much of a man's pleasure in life, so much of his power,
depends on his ability to silence these persistent questioners, that
this little book was written with the hope of making clearer the kind of
questions Dame Nature asks, and the way to get correct answers.
This is purposely a _little_ book, dealing only with a single group of
birds, treating particularly only some of the commoner species of that
group, taking up only a few of the problems that present themselves to
the naturalist for solution, and aiming rather to make the reader
_acquainted with_ the birds than _learned about_ them.
The woodpeckers were selected in preference to any other family because
they are patient under observation, easily identified, resident in all
parts of the country both in summer and in winter, and because more than
any other birds they leave behind them records of their work which may
be studied after the birds have flown. The book provides ample means for
identifying every species and subspecies of woodpecker known in North
America, though only five of the commonest and most interesting species
have been selected for special study. At least three of these five
should be found in almost every part of the country. The Californian
woodpecker is never seen in the East, nor the red-headed in the far
West, but the downy and the hairy are resident nearly everywhere, and
some species of the flickers and sapsuckers, if not always the ones
chosen for special notice, are visitors in most localities.
Look for the woodpeckers in orchards and along the edges of thickets,
among tangles of wild grapes and in patches of low, wild berries, upon
which they often feed, among dead trees and in the track of forest
fires. Wherever there are boring larvae, beetles, ants, grasshoppers, the
fruit of poison-ivy, dogwood, june-berry, wild cherry or wild grapes,
woodpeckers may be confidently looked for if there are any in the
neighborhood. Be patient, persistent, wide-awake, sure that you see what
you think you see, careful to remember what you have seen, studious to
compare your observations, and keen to hear the questions propounded
you. If you do this seven years and a day, you will earn the name of
Naturalist; and if you travel the road of the naturalist with curious
patience, you may some day become as famous a riddle-reader as was that
Oedipus, the king of Thebes, who slew the Sphinx.
I
HOW TO KNOW A WOODPECKER
The woodpecker is the easiest of all birds to recognize. Even if
entirely new to you, you may readily decide whether a bird is a
woodpecker or not.
The woodpecker is always striking and is often gay in color. He is
usually noisy, and his note is clear and characteristic. His shape and
habits are peculiar, so that whenever you see a bird clinging to the
side of a tree "as if he had been thrown at it and stuck," you may
safely call him a woodpecker. Not that all birds which cling to the bark
of trees are woodpeckers,--for the chickadees, the crested titmice, the
nuthatches, the brown creepers, and a few others like the kinglets and
some wrens and wood-warblers more or less habitually climb up and down
the tree-trunks; but these do it with a pretty grace wholly unlike the
woodpecker's awkward, cling-fast way of holding on. As the largest of
these is smaller than the smallest woodpecker, and as none of them
(excepting only the tiny kinglets) ever shows the patch of yellow or
scarlet which always marks the head of the male woodpecker, and which
sometimes adorns his mate, there is no danger of making mistakes.
The nuthatches are the only birds likely to be confused with
woodpeckers, and these have the peculiar habit of traveling down a
tree-trunk with their heads pointing to the ground. A woodpecker never
does this; he may move down the trunk of the tree he is working on, but
he will do it by hopping backward. A still surer sign of the woodpecker
is the way he sits upon his tail, using it to brace him. No other birds
except the chimney swift and the little brown creeper ever do this. A
sure mark, also, is his feet, which have two toes turned forward and two
turned backward. We find this arrangement in no other North American
birds except the cuckoos and our one native parroquet. However, there is
one small group of woodpeckers which have but three toes, and these are
the only North American land-birds that do not have four well-developed
toes.
In coloration the woodpeckers show a strong family likeness. Except in
some young birds, the color is always brilliant and often is gaudy.
Usually it shows much clear black and white, with dashes of scarlet or
yellow about the head. Sometimes the colors are "solid," as in the
red-headed woodpecker; sometimes they lie in close bars, as in the
red-bellied species; sometimes in spots and stripes, as in the downy and
hairy; but there is always a _contrast_, never any blending of hues. The
red or yellow is laid on in well-defined patches--square, oblong, or
crescentic--upon the crown, the nape, the jaws, or the throat; or else
in stripes or streaks down the sides of the head and neck, as in the
logcock, or pileated woodpecker.
There is no rule about the color markings of the sexes, as in some
families of birds. Usually the female lacks all the bright markings of
the male; sometimes, as in the logcock, she has them but in more
restricted areas; sometimes, as in the flickers, she has all but one of
the male's color patches; and in a few species, as the red-headed and
Lewis's woodpeckers, the two sexes are precisely alike in color. In the
black-breasted woodpecker, sometimes called Williamson's sapsucker, the
male and female are so totally different that they were long described
and named as different birds. It sometimes happens that a young female
will show the color marks of the male, but will retain them only the
first year.
Though the woodpeckers cling to the trunks of trees, they are not
exclusively climbing birds. Some kinds, like the flickers, are quite as
frequently found on the ground, wading in the grass like meadowlarks.
Often we may frighten them from the tangled vines of the frost grape and
the branches of wild cherry trees, or from clumps of poison-ivy, whither
they come to eat the fruit. The red-headed woodpecker is fond of sitting
on fence posts and telegraph poles; and both he and the flicker
frequently alight on the roofs of barns and houses and go pecking and
pattering over the shingles. The sapsuckers and several other kinds will
perch on dead limbs, like a flycatcher, on the watch for insects; the
flickers, and more rarely other kinds, will sit crosswise of a limb
instead of crouching lengthwise of it, as is the custom with
woodpeckers.
All these points you will soon learn. You will become familiar with the
form, the flight, and the calls of the different woodpeckers; you will
learn not only to know them by name, but to understand their characters;
they will become your acquaintances, and later on your friends.
This heavy bird, with straight, chisel bill and sharp-pointed
tail-feathers; with his short legs and wide, flapping wings, his
unmusical but not disagreeable voice, and his heavy, undulating,
business-like flight, is distinctly bourgeois, the type of a bird
devoted to business and enjoying it. No other bird has so much work to
do all the year round, and none performs his task with more energy and
sense. The woodpecker makes no aristocratic pretensions, puts on none of
the coy graces and affectations of the professional singer; even his gay
clothes fit him less jauntily than they would another bird. He is
artisan to the backbone,--a plain, hard-working, useful citizen,
spending his life in hammering holes in anything that appears to need a
hole in it. Yet he is neither morose nor unsocial. There is a vein of
humor in him, a large reserve of mirth and jollity. We see little of it
except in the spring, and then for a time all the laughter in him
bubbles up; he becomes uproarious in his glee, and the melody which he
cannot vent in song he works out in the channels of his trade, filling
the woodland with loud and harmonious rappings. Above all other birds he
is the friend of man, and deserves to have the freedom of the fields.
II
HOW THE WOODPECKER CATCHES A GRUB
Did you ever see a hairy woodpecker strolling about a tree for what he
could pick up?
There is a _whur-r-rp_ of gay black and white wings and the flash of a
scarlet topknot as, with a sharp cry, he dashes past you, strikes the
limb solidly with both feet, and instantly sidles behind it, from which
safe retreat he keeps a sharp black eye fixed upon your motions. If you
make friends with him by keeping quiet, he will presently forgive you
for being there and hop to your side of the limb, pursuing his ordinary
work in the usual way, turning his head from side to side, inspecting
every crevice, and picking up whatever looks appetizing. Any knot or
little seam in the bark is twice scanned; in such places moths and
beetles lay their eggs. Little cocoons are always dainty morsels, and
large cocoons contain a feast. The butterfly-hunter who is hoping to
hatch out some fine cecropia moths knows well that a large proportion of
all the cocoons he discovers will be empty. The hairy woodpecker has
been there before him, and has torn the chrysalis out of its silken
cradle. For this the farmer should thank him heartily, even if the
butterfly-hunter does not, for the cecropia caterpillar is destructive.
But sometimes, on the fair bark of a smooth limb, the woodpecker stops,
listens, taps, and begins to drill. He works with haste and energy,
laying open a deep hole. For what? An apple-tree borer was there cutting
out the life of the tree. The farmer could see no sign of him; neither
could the woodpecker, but he could hear the strong grub down in his
little chamber gnawing to make it longer, or, frightened by the heavy
footsteps on his roof, scrambling out of the way.
[Illustration: Boring larva.]
It is easy to hear the borer at work in the tree. When a pine forest has
been burned and the trees are dead but still standing, there will be
such a crunching and grinding of borers eating the dead wood that it can
be heard on all sides many yards away. Even a single borer can sometimes
be heard distinctly by putting the ear to the tree. Sound travels much
farther through solids than it does through air; notice how much farther
you can hear a railroad train by the click of the rails than by the
noise that comes on the air. Even our dull ears can detect the woodworm,
but we cannot locate him. How, then, is the woodpecker to do what we
cannot do?
Doubtless experience teaches him much, but one observer suggests that
the woodpecker places the grub by the sense of touch. He says he has
seen the red-headed woodpecker drop his wings till they trailed along
the branch, as if to determine where the vibrations in the wood were
strongest, and thus to decide where the grub was boring. But no one else
appears to have noticed that woodpeckers are in the habit of trailing
their wings as they drill for grubs. It would be a capital study for one
to attempt to discover whether the woodpecker locates his grub by
feeling, or whether he does it by hearing alone. Only one should be sure
he is looking for grubs and not for beetles' eggs, nor for ants, nor for
caterpillars. By the energy with which he drills, and the size of the
hole left after he has found his tidbit, one can decide whether he was
working for a borer.
But when the borer has been located, he has yet to be captured. There
are many kinds of borers. Some channel a groove just beneath the bark
and are easily taken; but others tunnel deep into the wood. I measured
such a hole the other day, and found it was more than eight inches long
and larger than a lead-pencil, bored through solid rock-maple wood. The
woodpecker must sink a hole at right angles to this channel and draw the
big grub out through his small, rough-sided hole. You would be
surprised, if you tried to do the same with a pair of nippers the size
of the woodpecker's bill, to find how strong the borer is, how he can
buckle and twist, how he braces himself against the walls of his house.
Were your strength no greater than the woodpecker's, the task would be
much harder. Indeed, a large grub would stand a good chance of getting
away but for one thing, the woodpecker _spears_ him, and thereby saves
many a dinner for himself.
[Illustration: Indian spear.]
Here is a primitive Indian fish-spear, such as the Penobscots used. To
the end of a long pole two wooden jaws are tied loosely enough to spring
apart a little under pressure, and midway between them, firmly driven
into the end of the pole, is a point of iron. When a fish was struck,
the jaws sprung apart under the force of the blow, guiding the iron
through the body of the fish, which was held securely in the hollow
above, that just fitted around his sides, and by the point itself.
[Illustration: Solomon Islander's spear.]
The tool with which the woodpecker fishes for a grub is very much the
same. His mandibles correspond to the two movable jaws. They are
knife-edged, and the lower fits exactly inside the upper, so that they
give a very firm grip. In addition, the upper one is movable. All birds
can move the upper mandible, because it is hinged to the skull. (Watch a
parrot some day, if you do not believe it.) A medium-sized woodpecker,
like the Lewis's, can elevate his upper mandible at least a quarter of
an inch without opening his mouth at all. This enables him to draw his
prey through a smaller hole than would be needed if he must open his
jaws along their whole length. Between the mandibles is the
sharp-pointed tongue, which can be thrust entirely through a grub,
holding him impaled. Unlike the Indian's spear-point, the woodpecker's
tongue is barbed heavily on both sides, and it is extensile. As a tool
it resembles the Solomon Islander's spear. A medium-sized woodpecker can
dart his tongue out two inches or more beyond the tip of his bill. A New
Bedford boy might tell us, and very correctly, that the woodpecker
_harpoons_ his grub, just as a whaleman harpoons a whale. If the grub
tries to back off into his burrow, out darts the long, barbed tongue and
spears him. Then it drags him along the crooked tunnel and into the
narrow shaft picked by the woodpecker, where the strong jaws seize and
hold him firmly.
III
HOW THE WOODPECKER COURTS HIS MATE
Other birds woo their mates with songs, but the woodpecker has no voice
for singing. He cannot pour out his soul in melody and tell his love his
devotion in music. How do songless birds express their emotions? Some by
grotesque actions and oglings, as the horned owl, and some by frantic
dances, as the sharp-tailed grouse, woo and win their mates; but the
amorous woodpecker, not excepting the flickers, which also woo by
gestures, whacks a piece of seasoned timber, and rattles off
interminable messages according to the signal code set down for
woodpeckers' love affairs. He is the only instrumental performer among
the birds; for the ruffed grouse, though he drums, has no drum.
There is no cheerier spring sound, in our belated Northern season, than
the quick, melodious rappings of the sapsucker from some dead ash limb
high above the meadow. It is the best performance of its kind: he knows
the capabilities of his instrument, and gets out of it all the music
there is in it. Most if not all woodpeckers drum occasionally, but
drumming is the special accomplishment of the sapsucker. He is easily
first. In Maine, where they are abundant, they make the woods in
springtime resound with their continual rapping. Early in April, before
the trees are green with leaf, or the pussy-willows have lost their
silky plumpness, when the early round-leafed yellow violet is cuddling
among the brown, dead leaves, I hear the yellow-bellied sapsucker along
the borders of the trout stream that winds down between the mountains.
The dead branch of an elm-tree is his favorite perch, and there,
elevated high above all the lower growth, he sits rolling forth a flood
of sound like the tremolo of a great organ. Now he plays
staccato,--detached, clear notes; and now, accelerating his time, he
dashes through a few bars of impetuous hammerings. The woods reecho with
it; the mountains give it faintly back. Beneath him the ruffed grouse
paces back and forth on his favorite mossy log before he raises the
palpitating whirr of his drumming. A chickadee digging in a rotten limb
pauses to spit out a mouthful of punky wood and the brown _Vanessa_,
edged with yellow, first butterfly of the season, flutters by on
rustling wings. So spring arrives in Maine, ushered in by the reveille
of the sapsucker.
So ambitious is the sapsucker of the excellence of his performance that
no instrument but the best will satisfy him. He is always experimenting,
and will change his anvil for another as soon as he discovers one of
superior resonance. They say he tries the tin pails of the maple-sugar
makers to see if these will not give him a clearer note; that he drums
on tin roofs and waterspouts till he loosens the solder and they come
tumbling down. But usually he finds nothing so near his liking as a
hard-wood branch, dead and barkless, the drier, the harder, the thinner,
the finer grained, so much the better for his uses.
Deficient as they are in voice, the woodpeckers do not lack a musical
ear. Mr. Burroughs tells us that a downy woodpecker of his acquaintance
used to change his key by tapping on a knot an inch or two from his
usual drumming place, thereby obtaining a higher note. Alternating
between the two places, he gave to his music the charm of greater
variety. The woodpeckers very quickly discover the superior conductivity
of metals. In parts of the country where woodpeckers are more abundant
than good drumming trees, a tin roof proves an almost irresistible
attraction. A lightning-rod will sometimes draw them farther than it
would an electric bolt; and a telegraph pole, with its tinkling glasses
and ringing wires, gives them great satisfaction. If men did not put
their singing poles in such public places, their music would be much
more popular with the woodpeckers; but even now the birds often venture
on the dangerous pastime and hammer you out a concord of sweet sounds
from the mellow wood-notes, the clear peal of the glass, and the ringing
overtones of the wires.
The flicker often telegraphs his love by tapping either on a forest tree
or on some loose board of a barn or outhouse; but he has other ways of
courting his lady. On fine spring mornings, late in April, I have seen
them on a horizontal bough, the lady sitting quietly while her lover
tried to win her approval by strange antics. Quite often there are two
males displaying their charms in open rivalry, but once I saw them when
the field was clear. If fine clothes made a gentleman, this brave wooer
would have been first in all the land: for his golden wings and tail
showed their glittering under side as he spread them; his scarlet
headdress glowed like fire; his rump was radiantly white, not to speak
of the jetty black of his other ornaments and the beautiful
ground-colors of his body. He danced before his lady, showing her all
these beauties, and perhaps boasting a little of his own good looks,
though she was no less beautiful. He spread his wings and tail for her
inspection; he bowed, to show his red crescent; he bridled, he stepped
forward and back and sidewise with deep bows to his mistress, coaxing
her with the mellowest and most enticing _co-wee-tucks_, which no doubt
in his language meant "Oh, promise me," laughing now and then his jovial
_wick-a-wick-a-wick-a-wick-a_, either in glee or nervousness. It was all
so very silly--and so very nice! I wonder how it all came out. Did she
promise him? Or did she find a gayer suitor?
IV
HOW THE WOODPECKER MAKES A HOUSE
All woodpeckers make their houses in the wood of trees, either the trunk
or one of the branches. Almost the only exceptions to this rule are
those that live in the treeless countries of the West. In the torrid
deserts of Arizona and the Southwest, some species are obliged to build
in the thorny branches of giant cacti, which there grow to an enormous
size. In the treeless plains to the northward, a few individuals, for
lack of anything so suitable as the cactus, dig holes in clay banks, or
even lay their eggs upon the surface of the prairie. In a country where
chimney swallows nest in deserted houses, and sand martins burrow in the
sides of wells, who wonders at the flicker's thinking that the side of a
haystack, the hollow of a wheel-hub, or the cavity under an old
ploughshare, is an ideal home? But in wooded countries the woodpeckers
habitually nest in trees. The only exceptions I know are a few flickers'
holes in old posts, and a few instances where flickers have pecked
through the weatherboarding of a house to nest in the space between the
walls.
But because a bird nests in a hole in a tree, it is not necessarily a
woodpecker. The sparrow-hawk, the house sparrow, the tree swallow, the
bluebird, most species of wrens, and several of the smaller species of
owls nest either in natural cavities in trees or in deserted
woodpeckers' holes. The chickadees, the crested titmice, and the
nuthatches dig their own holes after the same pattern as the
woodpecker's. However, the large, round holes were all made by
woodpeckers, and of those under two inches in diameter, our friend Downy
made his full share. It is easy to tell who made the hole, for the
different birds have different styles of housekeeping. The chickadees
and nuthatches always build a soft little nest of grass, leaves, and
feathers, while the woodpeckers lay their eggs on a bed of chips, and
carry nothing in from outside.
Soon after they have mated in the spring, the woodpeckers begin to talk
of housekeeping. First, a tree must be chosen. It may be sound or partly
decayed, one of a clump or solitary; but it is usually dead or
hollow-hearted, and at least partly surrounded by other trees. Sometimes
a limb is chosen, sometimes an upright trunk, and the nest may be from
two feet to one hundred feet from the ground, though most frequently it
will be found not less than ten nor more than thirty feet up. However
odd the location finally occupied, it is likely that it was not the
first one selected. A woodpecker will dig half a dozen houses rather
than occupy an undesirable tenement. It is very common to find their
unfinished holes and the wider-mouthed, shallower pockets which they dig
for winter quarters; for those that spend their winters in the cold
North make a hole to live in nights and cold and stormy days.
The first step in building is to strike out a circle in the bark as
large as the doorway is to be; that is, from an inch and a half to three
or four inches in diameter according to the size of the woodpecker. It
is nearly always a perfect circle. Try, if you please, to draw freehand
a circle of dots as accurate as that which the woodpecker strikes out
hurriedly with his bill, and see whether it is easy to do as well as he
does.
If the size and shape of the doorway suit him, the woodpecker scales off
the bark inside his circle of holes and begins his hard work. He seems
to take off his coat and work in his shirtsleeves, so vigorously does he
labor as he clings with his stout toes, braced in position by his
pointed tail. The chips fly out past him, or if they lie in the hole,
he sweeps them out with his bill and pelts again at the same place. The
pair take turns at the work. Who knows how long they work before
resting? Do they take turns of equal length? Does one work more than the
other? A pair of flickers will dig about two inches in a day, the hole
being nearly two and a half inches in diameter. A week or more is
consumed in digging the nest, which, among the flickers, is commonly
from ten to eighteen inches deep. The hole usually runs in horizontally
for a few inches and then curves down, ending in a chamber large enough
to make a comfortable nest for the mother and her babies.
What a good time the little ones have in their hole! Rain and frost
cannot chill them; no enemy but the red squirrel is likely to disturb
them. There they lie in their warm, dark chamber, looking up at the ray
of light that comes in the doorway, until at last they hear the
scratching of their mother's feet as she alights on the outside of the
tree and clambers up to feed them. What a piping and calling they raise
inside the hole, and how they all scramble up the walls of their chamber
and thrust out their beaks to be fed, till the old tree looks as if it
were blossoming with little woodpeckers' hungry mouths!
V
HOW A FLICKER FEEDS HER YOUNG[1]
[Footnote 1: Based upon the observations of Mr. William Brewster.]
As the house of the woodpecker has no windows and the old bird very
nearly fills the doorway when she comes home, it is hard to find out
just how she feeds her little ones. But one of our best naturalists has
had the opportunity to observe it, and has told what he saw.
A flicker had built a nest in the trunk of a rather small dead tree
which, after the eggs were hatched, was accidentally broken off just at
the entrance hole. This left the whole cavity exposed to the weather;
but it was too late to desert the nest, and impossible to remove the
young birds to another nest.
When first visited, the five little birds were blind, naked, and
helpless. They were motherless, too. Some one must have killed their
pretty mother; for she never came to feed them, and the father was
taking all the care of his little family. When disturbed the little
birds hissed like snakes, as is the habit of the callow young of
woodpeckers, chickadees, and other birds nesting habitually in holes in
trees. When they were older and their eyes were open, they made a
clatter much like the noise of a mowing-machine, and loud enough to be
heard thirty yards away.
The father came at intervals of from twenty to sixty minutes to feed the
little ones. He was very shy, and came so quietly that he would be first
seen when he alighted close by with a low little laugh or a subdued but
anxious call to the young. "Here I am again!" he laughed; or "Are you
all right, children?" he called to them. "All right!" they would answer,
clattering in concert like a two-horse mower.
As soon as they heard him scratching on the tree-trunk, up they would
all clamber to the edge of the nest and hold out their gaping mouths to
be fed. Each one was anxious to be fed first, because there never was
enough to go round. There was always one that, like the little pig of
the nursery tale, "got none." When he came to the nest, the father would
look around a moment, trying to choose the one he wanted to feed first.
Did he always pick out the poor little one that had none the time
before, I wonder?
After the old bird had made his choice, he would bend over the little
bird and drive his long bill down the youngster's throat as if to run
it through him. Then the little bird would catch hold as tightly as he
could and hang on while his father jerked him up and down for a second
or a second and a half with great rapidity. What was he doing? He was
pumping food from his own stomach into the little one's. Many birds feed
their young in this way. They do not hold the food in their own mouths,
but swallow and perhaps partially digest it, so that it shall be fit for
the tender little stomachs.
While the woodpecker was pumping in this manner his motions were much
the same as when he drummed, but his tail twitched as rapidly as his
head and his wings quivered. The motion seemed to shake his whole body.
In two weeks from the time when the little birds were blind, naked,
helpless nestlings they became fully feathered and full grown, able to
climb up to the top of the nest, from which they looked out with
curiosity and interest. At any noise they would slip silently back. A
day or two later they left the old nest and began their journeys.
No naturalist has been able to tell us whether other woodpeckers than
the golden-winged flicker feed their young in this way; and little is
known of the number of kinds of birds that use this method, but it is
suspected that it is far more common than has ever been determined. If
an old bird is seen to put her bill down a young one's throat and keep
it there even so short a time as a second, it is probable that she is
feeding the little one by regurgitation, that is, by pumping up food
from her own stomach. Any bird seen doing this should be carefully
watched. It has long been known that the domestic pigeon does this, and
the same has been observed a number of times of the ruby-throated
hummingbird. A California lady has taken some remarkable photographs of
the Anna's hummingbird in the act, showing just how it is done.
VI
FRIEND DOWNY
No better little bird comes to our orchards than our friend the downy
woodpecker. He is the smallest and one of the most sociable of our
woodpeckers,--a little, spotted, black-and-white fellow, precisely like
his larger cousin the hairy, except in having the outer tail-feathers
barred instead of plain. Nearly everything that can be said of one is
equally true of the other on a smaller scale. They look alike, they act
alike, and their nests and eggs are alike in everything but size.
Downy is the most industrious of birds. He is seldom idle and never in
mischief. As he does not fear men, but likes to live in orchards and in
the neighborhood of fields, he is a good friend to us. On the farm he
installs himself as Inspector of Apple-trees. It is an old and an
honorable profession among birds. The pay is small, consisting only of
what can be picked up, but, as cultivated trees are so infested with
insects that food is always plentiful, and as they have usually a
dead branch suitable to nest in, Downy asks no more. Summer and winter
he works on our orchards. At sunrise he begins, and he patrols the
branches till sunset. He taps on the trunks to see whether he can hear
any rascally borers inside. He inspects every tree carefully in a
thorough and systematic way, beginning low down and following up with a
peek into every crevice and a tap upon every spot that looks suspicious.
If he sees anything which ought not to be there, he removes it at once.
[Illustration]
A moth had laid her eggs in a crack in the bark, expecting to hatch out
a fine brood of caterpillars: but Downy ate them all, thus saving a
whole branch from being overrun with caterpillars and left fruitless,
leafless, and dying. A beetle had just deposited her eggs here. Downy
saw her, and took not only the eggs but the beetle herself. Those eggs
would have hatched into boring larvae, which would have girdled and
killed some of the branches, or have burrowed under the bark, causing it
to fall off, or have bored into the wood and, perhaps, have killed the
tree. Nor is the full-grown borer exempt. Downy hears him, pecks a few
strokes, and harpoons him with unerring aim. When Downy has made an
arrest in this way, the prisoner does not escape from the police. Here
is a colony of ants, running up the tree in one line and down in
another, touching each other with their feelers as they pass. A feast
for our friend! He takes both columns, and leaves none to tell the tale.
This is a good deed, too, since ants are of no benefit to fruit-trees
and are very fond of the dead-ripe fruit.
And Downy is never too busy to listen for borers. They are fine plump
morsels much to his taste, not so sour as ants, nor so hard-shelled as
beetles, nor so insipid as insects' eggs. A good borer is his preferred
dainty. The work he does in catching borers is of incalculable benefit,
for no other bird can take his place. The warblers, the vireos, and some
other birds in summer, the chickadees and nuthatches all the year round,
are helping to eat up the eggs and insects that lie near the surface,
but the only birds equipped for digging deep under the bark and dragging
forth the refractory grubs are the woodpeckers.
So Downy works at his self-appointed task in our orchards summer and
winter, as regular as a policeman on his beat. But he is much more than
a policeman, for he acts as judge, jury, jailer, and jail. All the
evidence he asks against any insect is to find him loafing about the
premises. "I swallow him first and find out afterwards whether he was
guilty," says Downy with a wink and a nod.
Most birds do not stay all the year, in the North, at least, and most,
in return for their labors in the spring, demand some portion of the
fruit or grain of midsummer and autumn. Not so Downy. His services are
entirely gratuitous; he works twice as long as most others. He spends
the year with us, no winter ever too severe for him, no summer too hot;
and he never taxes the orchard, nor takes tribute from the berry patch.
Only a quarter of his food is vegetable, the rest being made up of
injurious insects; and the vegetable portion consists entirely of wild
fruits and weed-seeds, nothing that man eats or uses. Downy feeds on the
wild dogwood berries, a few pokeberries, the fruit of the woodbine, and
the seeds of the poison-ivy,--whatever scanty and rather inferior fare
is to be had at Nature's fall and winter table. If in the cold winter
weather we will take pains to hang out a bone with some meat on it, raw
or cooked, or a piece of suet, taking care that it is not salted,--for
few wild birds except the crossbills can eat salted food,--we may see
how he appreciates our thoughtfulness. Shall we grudge him a bone from
our own abundance, or neglect to fasten it firmly out of reach of the
cat and dog? If his cousin the hairy and his neighbor the chickadee
come and eat with him, bid them a hearty welcome. The feast is spread
for all the birds that help men, and friend Downy shall be their host.
VII
PERSONA NON GRATA
We shall not attempt to deny that Downy has an unprincipled relative.
While it is no discredit, it is a great misfortune to Downy, who is
often murdered merely because he looks a little, a very little, like
this disreputable cousin of his. The real offender is the sapsucker,
that musical genius of whom we have already spoken.
The popular belief is that every woodpecker is a sapsucker, and that
every hole he digs in a tree is an injury to the tree. We have seen that
every hole Downy digs is a benefit, and now we wish to learn why it is
that the sapsucker's work is any more injurious than other woodpeckers'
holes; how we are to recognize the sapsucker's work; and how much damage
he does. We will do what the scientists often do,--examine the bird's
work and make it tell us the story. There is no danger of hurting the
sapsucker's reputation. The farmer could have no worse opinion of him;
and, though the case has been appealed to the higher courts of science
more than once, where the sapsucker's cause has been eloquently and
ably defended, the verdict has gone against him. Scientists now do not
deny that the sapsucker does harm. But his worst injury is less in the
damage he does to the trees than in the ill-will and suspicion he
creates against woodpeckers which do no harm at all. If you will study
the picture and the descriptions in the Key to the Woodpeckers, you will
be able to recognize the sapsucker and his nearest relatives, whether in
the East or in the West. But all sapsuckers may be known by their pale
yellowish under parts, and by the work they leave behind. As the
yellow-bellied sapsucker is the only one found east of the Rocky
Mountains, we shall speak only of him and his work.
[Illustration: Work of Sapsucker.]
Here is a specimen of the yellow-bellied sapsucker's work which I picked
up under the tree from which it had fallen. We do not need to inquire
whether the tree was injured by its falling, for we know that the loss
of sound and healthy bark is always a damage. Was this sound bark? Yes,
because it is still firm and new. The sap in it dried quickly,
showing that neither disease nor worms caused it to fall; it is clean
and hard on the back, showing that it came from a live tree, not from a
dead, rotting log.
[Illustration]
How do I know that a bird caused it to fall? The marks are precisely
such as are always left by a woodpecker's bill. How do I know that it
was a sapsucker's work? Because no other woodpecker has the habit which
characterizes the sapsucker, of sinking holes in straight lines. The
sapsuckers drill lines of holes sometimes around and sometimes up and
down the tree-trunk, but almost always in rings or belts about the trunk
or branches. A girdle may be but a single line of holes, or it may
consist of four or five, or more, lines. Sometimes a band will be two
feet wide; and as many as eight hundred holes have been counted on the
trunk of a single tree. Such extensive peckings, however, are to be
expected only on large forest trees. Most fruit and ornamental trees are
girdled a few times about the trunk, and about the principal branches
just below the nodes, or forks.
Why did the bird dig these holes? There are three things that he might
have obtained,--sap, the inner bark, and boring larvae. Some naturalists
have suggested a fourth as possible,--the insects that would be
attracted by the sap.
We will see what the piece of bark tells us. It is four and a half
inches long, by an inch and a half wide, and its area of six and three
fourths square inches has forty-four punctures. Does this look as if the
bird were digging grubs? Do borers live in such straight little streets?
The number and arrangement of the holes show that he was not seeking
borers, while the naturalists tell us that he never eats a borer unless
by accident. What did he get? Undoubtedly he pecked away some of the
inner bark. All these holes are much larger on the back side of the
specimen than on the outer surface. While the damp inner bark would
shrink a little on exposure to the air, we know that it could not shrink
as much as this; and investigation has shown that the sapsucker feeds
largely on just such food, for it has been found in his stomach. Two
other possible food-substances remain,--sap and insects. We know that
the sapsucker eats many insects, but it is impossible to prove that he
intended these holes for insect lures. Sap he might have gotten from
them, if he wished it. We know that the white birch is full of excellent
sap, from which can be made a birch candy, somewhat bitter, but nearly
as good as horehound candy. The rock and red maples and the white canoe
birch are the only trees in our Northern forests from which we make
candy. A strong probability that our bird wanted sap is indicated by the
arrangement of the holes. Usually he drills his holes in rings around
the tree-trunk, but in this instance his longest lines of holes are
vertical. If our sapsucker was drilling for sap, he arranged his holes
so that it would almost run into his mouth, lazy bird!
Our piece of bark has taught us:--
That the sapsucker injured this tree.
That he was not after grubs.
That he got, and undoubtedly ate, the soft inner bark of the tree.
That he got, and may have drunk, the sap.
We could not infer any more from a single instance, but the naturalists
assure us that the bird is in the habit of injuring trees, that he never
eats grubs intentionally, and that he eats too much bark for it to be
regarded as taken accidentally with other food. About the sap they
cannot be so sure, as it digests very quickly. There remain two points
to prove: whether the sapsucker drills his holes for the sake of the
sap, or for insects attracted by the sap, provided that he eats anything
but the inner bark.
Our little specimen can tell us no more, but two mountain ash trees
which were intimate acquaintances of mine from childhood can go on with
the story. Do not be surprised that I speak of them as friends; the
naturalist who does not make _friends_ of the creatures and plants about
will hear few stories from them. These trees would not tell this tale to
any one but an intimate acquaintance. Let us hear what they have to say
about the sapsucker.
There are in the garden of my old home two mountain ash trees,
thirty-six years of age, each having grown from a sprout that sprang up
beside an older tree cut down in 1863. They stand not more than two rods
apart; have the same soil, the same amount of sun and rain, the same
exposure to wind, and equal care. During all the years of my childhood
one was a perfectly healthy tree, full of fruit in its season, while the
other bore only scanty crops, and was always troubled with cracked and
scaling bark. To-day the unhealthy tree is more vigorous than ever
before, while its formerly stalwart brother stands a mere wreck of its
former life and beauty. What should be the cause of such a remarkable
change when all conditions of growth have remained the same?
I admit that there is some internal difference in the trees, for all the
birds tell me of it. One has always borne larger and more abundant fruit
than the other, but this is no reason why the birds should strip all
the berries from that tree before eating any from the other. When we
know that the favorite tree stands directly in front of the windows of a
much-used room and overhangs a frequented garden path, the preference
becomes more marked. But robins, grosbeaks, purple finches, and the
whole berry-eating tribe agree to choose one and neglect the other, and
even the spring migrants will leave the gay red tassels of fruit still
swinging on one tree, to scratch over the leaves and eat the fallen
berries that lie beneath the other. My own taste is not keen in choosing
between bitter berries, but the birds all agree that there is a decided
difference in these trees,--did agree, I should say, for their favorite
is the tree that is dying. Evidently this is a question of taste. It is
interesting to observe that the sapsucker, which was never seen to touch
the fruit of the trees, agrees with the fruit-eating birds. Nearly all
his punctures were in the tree now dying. Is there a difference in the
taste of the sap? Does the taste of the sap affect the taste of the
fruit? Or is it merely a question of quantity? If he comes for sap, he
prefers one tree to the other on the score either of better quality or
greater quantity.
We will discuss later whether it is sap that he wishes: all that now
concerns us is to note that the internal difference, whatever it is, is
in favor of the tree that is dying; while the only external difference
appears to be the marks left by the sapsucker. While one tree is
sparingly marked by him, the other is tattooed with his punctures,
placed in single rings and in belts around trunk and branches beneath
every fork. It is a law of reasoning that, when every condition but one
is the same and the effects are different, the one exceptional condition
is the _cause_ of the difference. If these trees are alike in everything
except the work of the sapsucker (the only internal difference
apparently _offsetting_ his work in part), what inference do we draw as
to the effect of his work?
We presume that he is killing the tree, without as yet knowing how he
does it. What is his object? Good observers have stated that he draws a
little sap in order to attract flies and wasps; that the sap is not
drawn for its own sake, but as a bait for insects. Is this theory true?
The first objection is that it is improbable. The sapsucker is a
retiring, woodland bird that would hesitate to come into a town garden a
mile away from the nearest woods unless to get something he could not
find in the woods. Had he wanted insects, he would have tapped a tree
in the woods, or else he would have caught them in his usual flycatching
fashion. There must have been something about the mountain ash tree that
he craved. As it is a very rare tree in the vicinity of my home, the
sapsucker's only chance to satisfy his longing was by coming to some
town garden like our own.
Not only is the theory improbable, but it fails to explain the
sapsucker's actions in this instance. In twenty years he was never seen
to catch an insect that was attracted by the sap he drew. This does not
deny that he may have caught insects now and then, but it does deny that
he set the sap running for a lure. As he was never far away, and was
sometimes only four and a half feet by measure from a chamber window,
all that he did could be seen. He did not catch insects at his holes. He
drank sap and ate bark.
Finally, the theory is not only improbable and inadequate, but in this
instance it is impossible. I do not remember seeing a sapsucker in the
tree in the spring; if he came in the summer, it must have been at rare
intervals; but he was always there in the fall, when the leaves were
dropping. At that season the insect hordes had been dispersed by the
autumnal frosts, so that we know he did not come for insects.