ts
perfectly still for a few moments, surveying the surroundings,
and, seeing that the coast is clear, drops quickly and silently
down and disappears in the interior of his chestnut lodge. He
will do this all winter long, coming home, when the days are
stormy, by four o'clock, and not stirring out in the morning till
nine or ten o'clock. Some very cold, blustering days he will
probably not leave his retreat at all.

He has no mate or fellow lodger, though there is room in his
cabin for three birds at least. Where the female is I can only
conjecture; maybe she is occupying a discarded last year's lodge,
as I notice there are a good many new holes drilled in the trees
every fall, though many of the old ones still seem intact.

During the inclement season Downy is anything but chivalrous or
even generous. He will not even share with the female the marrow
bone or bit of suet that I fasten on the maple in front of my
window, but drives her away rudely. Sometimes the hairy
woodpecker, a much larger bird, routs Downy out and wrecks his
house. Sometimes the English sparrows mob him and dispossess him.
In the woods the flying squirrels often turn him out of doors and
furnish his chamber cavity to suit themselves.

III

I am always content if I can bring home from my walks the least
bit of live natural history, as when, the other day, I saw a
red-headed woodpecker having a tilt with a red squirrel on the
trunk of a tree.

Doubtless the woodpecker had a nest near by, and had had some
experience with this squirrel as a nest-robber. When I first saw
them, the bird was chasing the squirrel around the trunk of an
oak-tree, his bright colors of black and white and red making his
every movement conspicuous. The squirrel avoided him by darting
quickly to the other side of the tree.

Then the woodpecker took up his stand on the trunk of a tree a
few yards distant, and every time the squirrel ventured timidly
around where he could be seen the woodpecker would swoop down at
him, making another loop of bright color. The squirrel seemed to
enjoy the fun and to tempt the bird to make this ineffectual
swoop. Time and again he would poke his head round the tree and
draw the fire of his red-headed enemy. Occasionally the bird made
it pretty hot for him, and pressed him closely, but he could
escape because he had the inside ring, and was so artful a
dodger. As often as he showed himself on the woodpecker's side,
the bird would make a