Brewster (1876a) shows the bird as an expert flycatcher. “From an humble delver after worms and larvae, it rises to the proud independence of a Flycatcher, taking its prey on wing as unerringly as the best marksman of them all. From its perch on the spire of some tall stub it makes a succession of rapid sorties after its abundant victims and then flies off to its nest with bill and mouth crammed full of insects, principally large _Diptera_.” _Behavior._--The sapsucker, a bird of wide distribution and in some parts of its range the commonest woodpecker, has come to be regarded with disfavor by man, who accuses it of harming the trees it drills to obtain its food. Man accuses the bird of weakening trees by drawing away their life-blood and of killing many by girdling them with multiple punctures, and he blames the bird for marring the beauty of trunk and limb by pitting and scarring them. A study of the habits of the sapsucker shows that its work on the trees varies with the season and, on the Atlantic coast, is spread over a territory 3,000 miles long or more. During the migrations, northward and southward, when the birds are scattered and on the move, comparatively little harm is done. Here and there a limb may be killed--either girdled or opened so that infection enters--and rarely a tree may die, but the chief effect is an esthetic one, the scarring of the bark with pits, notably in orchards where it is a matter of common observation that most of the pitted trees are in perfect health. On their breeding ground and in their winter quarters, however, where the birds are concentrated and remain in one locality for a considerable time, the effect is more serious. In the Southern States especially, the lumber industry suffers material financial loss due to the fact that deep in the wood cut from trees on which sapsuckers have worked extensively, when the trees were small, the grain is distorted and made unsightly by the scars of the wounds inflicted by the birds years before. From an exhaustive study of the economic status of the woodpeckers by W. L. McAtee (1911), the salient points in reference to the yellow-bellied sapsucker are quoted below: The results of sapsucker attacks on trees are so uniform and characteristic as to be distinguished easily from the work of other woodpeckers. Sapsucker holes are drilled clear through the bark and cambium and often into the wood. They vary in outline from circular to squarish elliptical, in the latter case usually having the longer diameter across the limb or trunk. Generally they are arranged in rings or partial rings around the trunk, but they often fall into vertical series. Deeply-cut holes arranged with such regularity are made only by sapsuckers.