his mind; the work stopped, and
I concluded the bird had wisely abandoned the tree. Passing there one
cold, rainy November day, I thrust in my two fingers and was surprised
to feel something soft and warm: as I drew away my hand the bird came
out, apparently no more surprised than I was. It had decided, then, to
make its home in the old limb; a decision it had occasion to regret, for
not long after, on a stormy night, the branch gave way and fell to the
ground.

"When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,
and down will come baby, cradle and all."

Such a cavity makes a snug, warm home, and when the entrance is on the
under side if the limb, as is usual, the wind and snow cannot reach
the occupant. Late in December, while crossing a high, wooded mountain,
lured by the music of fox-hounds, I discovered fresh yellow chips
strewing the new-fallen snow, and at once thought of my woodpeckers. On
looking around I saw where one had been at work excavating a lodge in a
small yellow birch. The orifice was about fifteen feet from the ground,
and appeared as round as if struck with a compass. It was on the east
side of the tree, so as to avoid the prevailing west and northeast
winds. As it was nearly two inches in diameter, it could not have been
the work of the downy, but must have been that of the hairy, or else the
yellow-bellied woodpecker. His home had probably been wrecked by some
violent wind, and he was thus providing himself another. In digging out
these retreats the woodpeckers prefer a dry, brittle, trunk, not too
soft. They go in horizontally to the centre and then turn downward,
enlarging the tunnel as they go, till when finished it is the shape of a
long, deep pear.

Another trait our woodpeckers have that endears them to me, and that has
never been pointedly noticed by our ornithologists, is their habit
of drumming in the spring. They are songless birds, and yet all are
musicians; they make the dry limbs eloquent of the coming change. Did
you think that loud, sonorous hammering which proceeded from the orchard
or from the near woods on that still March or April morning was only
some bird getting its breakfast? It is downy, but he is not rapping at
the door of a grub; he is rapping at the door of spring, and the dry
limb thrills beneath the ardor of his blows. Or, later in the season,
in the dense forest or by some remote mountain lake, does that measured
rhythmic beat that breaks upon the silence, first th