Probably there are not many other agencies more destructive to timber than this family of beetles. Nor is timber safe even after it has been cut. Logs lying in the mill yard or forest may be ruined in a single season if these creatures are not prevented from depositing their eggs. * * * A very efficient check upon the undue increase of these insects is found in the woodpeckers, especially the two species of Picoides. Weevils and other beetles and some ants are eaten, as well as a few other insects and spiders. Vegetable food, wild fruits, mast, and cambium amount to less than 12 percent of the food. While with us, in southern New England, in winter, this woodpecker shows a decided preference for dead white pine trees (_Pinus strobus_), especially those that have been killed by fire or have been dead long enough for the bark to have partially peeled off. An isolated tree or a group of trees of this type may be visited day after day by one of these woodpeckers, during its stay, with such regularity that many an observer, who has never seen an Arctic three-toed woodpecker, may feel reasonably sure of finding one in such a place, if it has been previously seen there. Its persistent work on such a tree is well described by E. H. Forbush (1927) as follows: This species very often begins to work on the trunk near the foot of a tree; it sounds the bark with direct blows, and then, turning its head from side to side, strikes its beak slantingly into and under the bark, and flakes it off. It often works long on the same tree and barks the whole trunk in time, only occasionally working on the branches. Thus it exposes channels of bark-beetles and the holes made by borers. When the bird remains motionless, it is well concealed against the blackened bark of the burnt trees. It seems deliberate in its movements and appears to do its work thoroughly, as it often remains five to ten minutes on the same spot and then shifts only a little distance. In early autumn, while the grubs are still at work on the tree, it lays its head against the tree, at times, turning it first to one side and then to the other as if listening. Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930) write of the feeding habits of this woodpecker in the Lassen Peak region: