diff --git a/src/checkstyle/com/puppycrawl/tools/checkstyle/checks/AbstractHeaderCheck.java b/src/checkstyle/com/puppycrawl/tools/checkstyle/checks/AbstractHeaderCheck.java
index ba8fdc2c9..99b9a347b 100644
--- a/src/checkstyle/com/puppycrawl/tools/checkstyle/checks/AbstractHeaderCheck.java
+++ b/src/checkstyle/com/puppycrawl/tools/checkstyle/checks/AbstractHeaderCheck.java
@@ -36,9 +36,6 @@ import org.apache.commons.beanutils.ConversionException;
  */
 public abstract class AbstractHeaderCheck extends Check
 {
-    /** empty array to avoid instantiations. */
-    private static final int[] EMPTY_INT_ARRAY = new int[0];
-
     /** the lines of the header file. */
     private String[] mHeaderLines;