will not easily down. Controlling the depredations of beetles, borers,
weevils, and fungi calls for work of magnitude, but work that insures
success. This work consists of the constant removal of both the
infected trees and the dwarfed or injured ones that are susceptible to
infection. Most forest insects multiply with amazing rapidity; some
mother bark-beetles may have half a million descendants in less than
two years. Thus efforts for the control of insect outbreaks should
begin at once,--in the early stages of their activity. A single
infested tree may in a year or two spread destruction through
thousands of acres of forest.
Most insects have enemies to bite them. The ichneumon-fly spreads
death among injurious grubs. Efforts to control forest-enemies will
embrace the giving of aid and comfort to those insects that prey upon
them. Bugs will be hunted with bugs. Already the gypsy moth in the
East is being fought in this way. Many species of birds feed freely
upon weevils, borers, and beetles. Of these birds, the woodpeckers are
the most important. They must be protected and encouraged.
There are other methods of fighting the enemy. A striking and
successful device for putting an end to the spruce-destroying beetle
is to hack-girdle a spruce here and there in the forest at a season
when the physiological make-up of the tree will cause it to change
into a condition most favorable for the attraction of beetles. Like
carrion, this changed condition appears to be scented from all
quarters and afar. Swarms of beetles concentrate their attack upon
this tree and bury themselves in it and deposit their eggs. The
multiplied army will remain in the tree until late spring. Thus months
of time may be had to cut and burn the tree, with its myriads of
murderous guests. The freedom of the big trees from insect attacks
suggests that man as well as nature may develop or breed species of
trees that will better resist or even defy insects.
Insects are now damaging our forests to the extent of not less than
one hundred million dollars annually. This we believe to be a
conservative estimate. Yet these figures only begin to tell the story
of loss. They tell only the commercial value of the timber. The other
greater and higher values cannot be resolved into figures. Forest
influences and forest scenes add much to existence and bestow
blessings upon life that cannot be measured by gold.
Dr. Woodpecker, Tree-Surgeon
Dr. Woodpecker, Tree-Surgeon
Although the eagle has the emblematic place of honor in the United
States, the downy woodpecker is distinguished as the most useful bird
citizen. Of the eight hundred and three kinds of birds in North
America, his services are most helpful to man. He destroys destructive
forest insects. Long ago Nature selected the woodpecker to be the
chief caretaker--the physician and surgeon--of the tree world. This is
a stupendous task. Forests are extensive and are formed of hundreds of
species of trees. The American woodpeckers have the supervision of
uncounted acres that are forested with more than six hundred kinds of
trees.
With the exception of the California big tree, each tree species is
preyed upon by scores, and many species by hundreds, of injurious and
deadly insects. Five hundred kinds of insects are known to prey upon
the oak, and a complete count may show a thousand kinds. Many of these
insects multiply with amazing rapidity, and at all times countless
numbers of these aggressive pests form warrior armies with which the
woodpecker must constantly contend.
In this incessant struggle with insects the woodpecker has helpful
assistance from many other bird families. Though the woodpecker gives
general attention to hundreds of kinds of insects, he specializes on
those which injure the tree internally,--which require a surgical
operation to obtain. He is a distinguished specialist; the instruments
for tree-surgery are intrusted to his keeping, and with these he each
year performs innumerable successful surgical operations upon our
friends the trees.
Woodpeckers are as widely distributed as forests,--just how many to
the square mile no one knows. Some localities are blessed with a
goodly number, made up of representatives from three or four of our
twenty-four woodpecker species. Forest, shade, and orchard trees
receive their impartial attention. The annual saving from their
service is enormous. Although this cannot be estimated, it can hardly
be overstated.
A single borer may kill a tree; so, too, may a few beetles; while a
small number of weevils will injure and stunt a tree so that it is
left an easy victim for other insects. Borers, beetles, and weevils
are among the worst enemies of trees. They multiply with astounding
rapidity and annually kill millions of scattered trees. Annually, too,
there are numerous outbreaks of beetles, whose depredations extend
over hundreds and occasionally over thousands of acres. Caterpillars,
moths, and saw-flies are exceedingly injurious tree-pests, but they
damage the outer parts of the tree. Both they and their eggs are
easily accessible to many kinds of birds, including the woodpeckers;
but borers, beetles, and weevils live and deposit their eggs in the
very vitals of the tree. In the tree's vitals, protected by a heavy
barrier of wood or bark, they are secure from the beaks and claws of
all birds except Dr. Woodpecker, the chief surgeon of the forest.
About the only opportunity that other birds have to feed upon borers
and beetles is during the brief time they occupy in emerging from the
tree that they have killed, in their flight to some live tree, and
during their brief exposure while boring into it.
Beetles live and move in swarms, and, according to their numbers,
concentrate their attack upon a single tree or upon many trees. Most
beetles are one of a dozen species of _Dendroctonus_, which means
"tree-killer." Left in undisturbed possession of a tree, many mother
beetles may have half a million descendants in a single season.
Fortunately for the forest, Dr. Woodpecker, during his ceaseless round
of inspection and service, generally discovers infested trees. If one
woodpecker is not equal to the situation, many are concentrated at
this insect-breeding place; and here they remain until the last
dweller in darkness is reached and devoured. Thus most beetle
outbreaks are prevented. Now and then all the conditions are favorable
for the beetles, or the woodpecker may be persecuted and lose some of
his family; so that, despite his utmost efforts, he fails to make the
rounds of his forest, and the result is an outbreak of insects, with
wide depredations. So important are these birds that the shooting of a
single one may allow insects to multiply and waste acres of forest.
During the periods in which the insects are held in check the
woodpecker ranges through the forest, inspecting tree after tree. Many
times, during their tireless rounds of search and inspection, I have
followed them for hours. On one occasion in the mountains of Colorado
I followed a Batchelder woodpecker through a spruce forest all day
long. Both of us had a busy day. He inspected eight hundred and
twenty-seven trees, most of which were spruce or lodge-pole pine.
Although he moved quickly, he was intensely concentrated, was
systematic, and apparently did the inspection carefully. The forest
was a healthy one and harbored only straggling insects. Now and then
he picked up an isolated insect from a limb or took an egg-cluster
from a break in the bark on a trunk. Only two pecking operations were
required. On another occasion I watched a hairy woodpecker spend more
than three days upon one tree-trunk; this he pecked full of holes and
from its vitals he dragged more than a gross of devouring grubs. In
this case not only was the beetle colony destroyed but the tree
survived.
Woodpecker holes commonly are shallow, except in dead trees. Most of
the burrowing or boring insects which infest living trees work in the
outermost sapwood, just beneath the bark, or in the inner bark. Hence
the doctor does not need to cut deeply. In most cases his peckings in
the wood are so shallow that no scar or record is found. Hence a tree
might be operated on by him a dozen times in a season, and still not
show a scar when split or sawed into pieces. Most of his peckings
simply penetrate the bark, and on living trees this epidermis scales
off; thus in a short time all traces of his feast-getting are
obliterated. I have, however, in dissecting and studying fallen trees,
found a number of deep holes in their trunks which woodpeckers had
made years before the trees came to their death. In one instance, as I
have related in "The Story of a Thousand-Year Pine" in "Wild Life on
the Rockies," a deep oblong hole was pecked in a pine nearly eight
hundred years before it died. The hole filled with pitch and was
overgrown with bark and wood.
[Illustration: WOODPECKER HOLES IN A PINE INJURED BY LIGHTNING]
Woodpeckers commonly nest in a dead limb or trunk, a number of feet
from the ground. Here, in the heart of things, they excavate a
moderately roomy nest. It is common for many woodpeckers to peck out a
deep hole in a dead tree for individual shelter during the winter.
Generally neither nest nor winter lodging is used longer than a
season. The abandoned holes are welcomed as shelters and
nesting-places by many birds that prefer wooden-walled houses but
cannot themselves construct them. Chickadees and bluebirds often nest
in them. Screech owls frequently philosophize within these retreats.
On bitter cold nights these holes shelter and save birds of many
species. One autumn day, while watching beneath a pine, I saw fifteen
brown nuthatches issue from a woodpecker's hole in a dead limb. Just
what they were doing inside I cannot imagine; the extraordinary number
that had gathered therein made the incident so unusual that for a
long time I hesitated to tell it. However, early one autumn, Mr. Frank
M. Chapman climbed up the mountainside to see me, and, while resting
on the way up, he beheld twenty-seven nuthatches emerge from a hole in
a pine.
By tapping against dead tree-trunks I have often roused Mother
Woodpecker from her nest. Thrusting out her head from a hole far
above, she peered down with one eye and comically tilted her head to
discover the cause of the disturbance. With long nose and head tilted
to one side, she had both a storky and a philosophical appearance. The
woodpecker, more than any other bird of my acquaintance, at times
actually appears to need only a pair of spectacles upon his nose in
order fully to complete his attitude and expression of wisdom.
The downy woodpecker, the smallest member of a family of twenty-four
distinguished species, is the honored one. He is a confiding little
fellow and I have often accompanied him on his daily rounds. He does
not confine his attacks to the concealed enemies of the trees, but
preys freely upon caterpillars and other enemies which feast upon
their leaves and bloom. He appears most content close to the haunts of
man and spends much of his time caring for orchards and cleaning up
the shade trees. One morning in Missouri a downy alighted against the
base of an apple tree within a few feet of where I was standing. He
arrived with an undulating flight and swept in sideways toward the
trunk, as though thrown. Spat! he struck. For a moment he stuck
motionless, then he began to sidle round and up the trunk. Every now
and then he tapped with his bill or else stopped to peer into a
bark-cavity. He devoured an insect egg-cluster, a spider, and a beetle
of some kind before ascending to the first limb.
Just below the point of a limb's attachment he edged about, giving the
tree-trunk a rattling patter of taps with his bill. He was sounding
for something. Presently a spot appeared to satisfy him. Adjusting
himself, he rained blows with his pick-axe bill upon this, tilting his
head and directing the strokes with an apparently automatic action,
now and then giving a side swipe with his bill, probably to tear out
a splinter or throw off a chip. In six minutes his prey was evidently
in sight. Then he enlarged the hole and slightly deepened it
vertically. Pausing, he thrust his head into the hole and his bill
into a cavity beyond. With a backward tug he pulled his head out, then
his bill, and at last his extended tongue with a grub impaled on its
barbed point. This grub was dragged from the bottom of a crooked
gallery at a point more than three inches beyond the bottom of the
pecked hole. A useful bread-getting tool, this tongue of his,--a
flexible, extensible spear.
In another tree he uncovered a feast of ants and their eggs. Once a
grasshopper alighted against another tree-trunk up which he was
climbing. Downy seized him instantly. In one tree-top he consumed an
entire tent-caterpillar colony. In four hours he examined the trunks,
larger limbs, and many of the smaller ones of one hundred and
thirty-eight apple trees. In this time he made twenty-two excavations,
five of which were large ones. Among the insects devoured were
beetles, ants, their eggs and their aphids, a grasshopper, a moth or
two, and a colony of caterpillars. I followed him closely, and
frequently was within a few feet of him. Often I saw his eyes, or
rather one eye at a time; and a number of times I imagined him about
to look round and with merry laugh fly away, for he frequently acted
like a happy child who is closely watching you while all the time
merrily pretending not to see you. Yet, in all those four hours, he
did not do a single thing which showed that he knew of my nearness or
even of my existence!
Examining each tree in turn, he moved down a long row and at the end
flew without the slightest pause to the first tree in the next row.
From here he examined a line of trees diagonally across the orchard to
the farther corner. Here he followed along the outside row until he
flew away. The line of his inspection, from the time I first saw him
until he flew away, formed a big letter "N."
During a wind-storm in a pine forest a dead tree fell near me and a
flying limb knocked a downy, stunned, to the earth, by my feet. On
reviving in my hands, he showed but little excitement, and when my
hands opened he pushed himself off as though to dive to the earth; but
he skimmed and swung upward, landing against a tree-trunk about twenty
feet distant. Up this he at once began to skate and sidle, exploring
away as though nothing had happened and I were only a stump.
Little Boy Grizzly
Little Boy Grizzly
One day, while wandering in the pine woods on the slope of Mt. Meeker,
I came upon two young grizzly bears. Though they dodged about as
lively as chickens, I at last cornered them in a penlike pocket of
fallen trees.
Getting them into a sack was one of the liveliest experiences I ever
had. Though small and almost starved, these little orphans proceeded
to "chew me up" after the manner of big grizzlies, as is told of them
in books. After an exciting chase and tussle, I would catch one and
thrust him into the sack. In resisting, he would insert his claws into
my clothes, or thrust them through the side of the sack; then, while I
was trying to tear him loose, or to thrust him forcibly in, he would
lay hold of a finger, or take a bite in my leg. Whenever he bit, I at
once dropped him, and then all began over again.
Their mother had been killed a few days before I found them; so, of
course, they were famished and in need of a home; but so bitterly did
they resist my efforts that I barely succeeded in taking them. Though
hardly so large as a collie when he is at his prettiest, they were
nimble athletes.
At last I started home, the sack over my shoulder, with these lively
_Ursus horribilis_ in the bottom of it. Their final demonstration was
not needed to convince me of the extraordinary power of their jaws.
Nevertheless, while going down a steep slope, one managed to bite into
my back through sack and clothes, so effectively that I responded with
a yell. Then I fastened the sack at the end of a long pole, which I
carried across my shoulder, and I was able to travel the remainder of
the distance to my cabin without another attack in the rear.
Of course the youngsters did not need to be taught to eat. I simply
pushed their noses down into a basin of milk, and the little red
tongues at once began to ply; then raw eggs and bread were dropped
into the basin. There was no hesitation between courses; they simply
gobbled the food as long as I kept it before them.
Jenny and Johnny were pets before sundown. Though both were alert,
Johnny was the wiser and the more cheerful of the two. He took
training as readily as a collie or shepherd-dog, and I have never seen
any dog more playful. All bears are keen of wit, but he was the
brightest one of the wild folk that I have ever known. He grew
rapidly, and ate me almost out of supplies. We were intimate friends
in less than a month, and I spent much time playing and talking with
him. One of the first things I taught him was, when hungry, to stand
erect with arms extended almost horizontally, with palms forward. I
also taught him to greet me in this manner.
One day, after two weeks with me, he climbed to the top of a pole
fence to which he was chained. Up there he had a great time; he
perched, gazed here and there, pranced back and forth, and finally
fell off. His chain tangled and caught. For a few seconds he dangled
in the air by the neck, then slipped through his collar and galloped
off up the mountainside and quickly disappeared in the woods. I
supposed he was gone for good. Although I followed for several hours,
I did not even catch sight of him.
This little boy had three days of runaway life, and then concluded to
return. Hunger drove him back. I saw him coming and went to meet him;
but kept out of sight until he was within twenty feet, then stepped
into view. Apparently a confused or entangled mental condition
followed my appearance. His first impulse was to let me know that he
was hungry by standing erect and outstretching his arms; this he
started hastily to do.
In the midst of this performance, it occurred to him that if he wanted
anything to eat he must hurry to me; so he interrupted his first
action, and started to carry his second into instant effect. These
incomplete proceedings interrupted and tripped one another three or
four times in rapid succession. Though he tumbled about in comic
confusion while trying to do two things at once, it was apparent
through all that his central idea was to get something to eat.
[Illustration: JOHNNY AND JENNY]
And this, as with all boys, was his central idea much of the time. I
did not find anything that he would not eat. He simply gobbled
scraps from the table,--mountain sage, rhubarb, dandelion, and apples.
Of course, being a boy, he liked apples best of all.
If I approached him with meat and honey upon a plate and with an apple
in my pocket, he would smell the apple and begin to dance before me,
ignoring the eatables in sight. Instantly, on permission, he would
clasp me with both fore paws and thrust his nose into the apple
pocket. Often, standing between him and Jenny, I alternately fed each
a bit. A few times I broke the regular order and gave Jenny two bits
in succession. At this Johnny raged, and usually ended by striking
desperately at me; I never flinched, and the wise little rogue made it
a point each time to miss me by an inch or two. A few other people
tried this irritating experiment with him, but he hit them every time.
However, I early tried to prevent anything being done that teased or
irritated him. Visitors did occasionally tease him, and frequently
they fed the two on bad-temper-producing knickknacks.
Occasionally the two quarreled, but not more frequently than two
ordinary children; and these quarrels were largely traceable to
fight-producing food mixtures. Anyway, bears will maintain a better
disposition with a diet of putrid meat, snakes, mice, and weeds than
upon desserts of human concoction.
Naturally bears are fun-loving and cheerful; they like to romp and
play. Johnny played by the hour. Most of the time he was chained to a
low, small shed that was built for his accommodation. Scores of times
each day he covered all the territory that could be traversed while he
was fastened with a twelve-foot chain. Often he skipped back and forth
in a straight line for an hour or more. These were not the restless,
aimless movements of the caged tiger, but those of playful, happy
activity. It was a pleasure to watch this eager play; in it he would
gallop to the outer limit of his chain, then, reversing his legs
without turning his body, go backward with a queer, lively hippety-hop
to the other end, then gallop forward again. He knew the length of his
chain to an inch. No matter how wildly he rushed after some
bone-stealing dog, he was never jerked off his feet by forgetting his
limitations.
He and Scotch, my collie, were good friends and jolly playmates. In
their favorite play Scotch tried to take a bone which Johnny guarded;
this brought out from both a lively lot of feinting, dodging,
grabbing, and striking. Occasionally they clinched, and when this
ended, Johnny usually tried for a good bite or two on Scotch's shaggy
tail. Scotch appeared always to have in mind that the end of Johnny's
nose was sensitive, and he landed many a good slap on this spot.
Apparently, Johnny early appreciated the fact that I would not tease
him, and also that I was a master who must be obeyed. One day,
however, he met with a little mishap, misjudged things, and endeavored
to make it lively for me. I had just got him to the point where he
enjoyed a rocking-chair. In this chair he sat up like a little man.
Sometimes his fore paws lay awkwardly in his lap, but more often each
rested on an arm of the big chair. He found rocking such a delight
that it was not long until he learned to rock himself. This brought
on the mishap. He had grown over-confident, and one day was rocking
with great enthusiasm. Suddenly, the big rocker, little man and all,
went over backward. Though standing by, I was unable to save him, and
did not move. Seeing his angry look when he struck the floor, and
guessing his next move, I leaped upon the table. Up he sprang, and
delivered a vicious blow that barely missed, but which knocked a piece
out of my trousers.
Apparently no other large animal has such intense curiosity as the
grizzly. An object in the distance, a scent, a sound, or a trail, may
arouse this, and for a time overcome his intense and wary vigilance.
In satisfying this curiosity he will do unexpected and apparently bold
things. But the instant the mystery is solved he is himself again, and
may run for dear life from some situation into which his curiosity has
unwittingly drawn him. An unusual noise behind Johnny's shed would
bring him out with a rush, to determine what it was. If not at once
satisfied as to the cause, he would put his fore paws on the top of
the shed and peer over in the most eager and inquiring manner
imaginable. Like a scout, he spied mysterious and dim objects afar. If
a man, a dog, or a horse, appeared in the distance, he quickly
discovered the object, and at once stood erect, with fore paws drawn
up, until he had a good look at it. The instant he made out what it
was, he lost interest in it. At all times he was vigilant to know what
was going on about him.
He was like a boy in his fondness for water. Usually, when unchained
and given the freedom of the place, he would spend much of the time in
the brook, rolling, playing, and wading. He and I had a few
foot-races, and usually, in order to give me a better chance, we ran
down hill. In a two-hundred-yard dash he usually paused three or four
times and waited for me to catch up, and I was not a slow biped,
either.
The grizzly, though apparently awkward and lumbering, is really one of
the most agile of beasts. I constantly marveled at Johnny's lightness
of touch, or the deftness of movement of his fore paws. With but one
claw touching it, he could slide a coin back and forth on the floor
more rapidly and lightly than I could. He would slide an eggshell
swiftly along without breaking it. Yet by using but one paw, he could,
without apparent effort, overturn rocks that were heavier than
himself.