Though very handsome, this is not a bird that you would care to have come in great numbers to your garden or orchard.

For this bird makes holes in the tree bark and eats the sap that leaks out, from this habit gaining the name of Sapsucker.

Of course you see that this is a very bad thing for the trees; for when a great many holes have been bored near together the bark loosens and peels off, so that the tree is likely to die.

The Sap-sucker also does harm by eating the soft inner bark which is between the rough outside bark and the hard heart-wood of the tree; for this soft bark is where the sap flows to nourish the tree.
[Illustration: Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker.] "When the bird bores the holes and the sap oozes out, a great many insects gather to feed on it--hornets, wasps, spiders, beetles, flies, and other kinds.

These the Sapsucker also eats, sweeping them up in the sap with his tongue, which is not barbed like that of other Woodpeckers, but has a little brush on the end of it, shaped something like those we use for cleaning lamp chimneys.