. Birds of village and field [microform] : a bird book for beginners. Birds; Oiseaux. 130 FLICKER. The parents feed the young by regurgitation, which is very fortunate, as bringing food by the billful to such hirge broods Would be a good deal like feeding a giant with a teaspoon. Audubon once found a nest containing eighteen young birds and three eggs. Though the Flicker young have the good taste to like strawberries, the family lood is ants. In times of grassho])per plagues, the Wood- peckers very philanthropically turn to and help kill off the pests; but at ordinary times they work more for
. Birds of village and field [microform] : a bird book for beginners. Birds; Oiseaux. 130 FLICKER. The parents feed the young by regurgitation, which is very fortunate, as bringing food by the billful to such hirge broods Would be a good deal like feeding a giant with a teaspoon. Audubon once found a nest containing eighteen young birds and three eggs. Though the Flicker young have the good taste to like strawberries, the family lood is ants. In times of grassho])per plagues, the Wood- peckers very philanthropically turn to and help kill off the pests; but at ordinary times they work more for the housewife and florist, destroying the ants that invade the pantry and foster insect lice. Al- most half of the total food of the Flicker is ants, 3,000 of which were found in each of two stomachs — stonuichs whose owners appar- ently were not greatly in need of a tonic! This explains what the birds are do- ing when they are seen on the ground, and scared up from ant-hills in old pastures. The ground hab^t of the Flicker is so dominant that his dress conforms to the color of the eiu'th; his tongue, too, is unusiially long and has a rough surface to which his sticky saliva glues the ants which he picks up \>v probes out of the ant-hills. Like many innocent birds, the Flicker has been Fi(}. »i5. Ant, eaten by Flieker. Fio. ()(). Fliekei", showing long toifgue Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Bailey, Florence Merriam, b. 1863. Toronto : McClelland & Goodchild
Size: 1499px × 1668px
Photo credit: © The Book Worm / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbirds, booksubjectois
