within. They have been known also to lay their eggs in nesting
boxes put up for their accommodation.

In travelling through the pine barrens of the Southern States one
frequently finds grouped about the negroes' cabins and plantation
houses the popular chinaberry, or Pride of India tree. Here are the
places to look for the nest of the Hairy Woodpecker. In that country,
in fact, I have never found a nest of this bird except in the dead,
slanting limb of a chinaberry tree.

The member of this family which displays most originality in its nest
building is the Red-cockaded Woodpecker. It is a Southern bird, and
the abode for its young is always chiselled from a living pitch-pine
tree. This, in itself, is very unusual for any of our eastern
Woodpeckers. The bird, however, has a still stranger habit. For two
or three feet above the {36} entrance hole, and for five or six feet
below it, all around the tree, innumerable small openings are dug
through to the inner bark. From these little wells pour streams of
soft resin that completely cover the bark and give the trunk a white,
glistening appearance, which is visible sometimes for a quarter of a
mile. Just why they do this has never been explained. It is true,
however, that the sticky resin prevents ants and flying squirrels from
reaching the nest, and both of these are known to be troublesome to
eggs and young birds.

A simple plan, which is usually successful in finding out if a
Woodpecker is at home in its nesting hole, is to strike a few sharp
blows on the tree with some convenient club or rock. After a little
treatment of this kind the bird will often come to the entrance and
look down, as if to inquire into the meaning of all the disturbance.
If the nest has been newly made many fragments of small chips of wood
will be found on the ground beneath the tree.

_Variety of Situations._--The student who takes up {37} the subject of
nest architecture will soon be impressed not only with the wide
assortment of materials used, but also with the wonderful variety of
situations chosen.

[Illustration: The Grebe or "Water Witch"]

The Grebe, or "Water Witch," builds one of the most remarkable nests of
any American bird. It is a floating raft, the buoyant part of which is
the green {38} stems of water plants, not bent over, but severed from
their roots and piled across one another. On this platform is
collected decaying vegetation gathered from beneath the water.