ar fashion.

It was too late in the season to see the sapsucker in his most
frolicsome humor, although occasionally we met in the woods two of them
in a lively mood, eagerly discussing in garrulous tones their own
private affairs, or chasing each other with droll, taunting cries, some
of which resembled the boy's yell, "oy-ee," but others defied
description. During courtship, observes Dr. Merriam, they are
inexpressibly comical, with queer rollicking ways and eccentric pranks,
making the woods ring with their extraordinary voices. At this time,
early in June, the season of woodpecker wooing was past. Each little
couple had built a castle in the air, and set up a household of its own,
somewhere in the woods surrounding the house.

The two storehouses on the lawn seemed to belong to one family, whose
labor alone had prepared them; certainly they were the property of the
sapsuckers. But the bird world, like the human, has its spoilers. A
frequent visitor to the elm, on poaching bent, was a humming-bird, who
treated the beguiling cups like so many flowers, hovering lightly before
them, and testing one after another in regular order. The owner
naturally objected, and if present flew at the dainty robber; but the
elusive birdling simply moved to another place, not in the least awed by
his comparatively clumsy assailant. Large flies, perhaps bees also,
buzzed around the tempting bait, and doubtless many paid with their
lives for their folly.

The most unexpected plunderer of the sapsucker stores was a gray
squirrel, who lay spread out flat against the trunk as though glued
there, body, arms, legs, and even tail, with head down and closely
pressed against the bark. I cannot positively affirm that he was sucking
the sap or feeding upon the insects attracted to it, but it is a fact
that his mouth rested exactly over one of the rings of holes; and his
position seemed very satisfactory, for some reason, for he hung there
motionless so long that I began to fear he was dead. All these petty
pilferers may possibly have regarded the treasure as nature's own
provision, like the flowers, but one visitor to his neighbor's magazine
certainly knew better. This was the brilliant cousin of the sapsucker,
the red-headed woodpecker, whose vagaries I shall speak of a little
later.

Nothing about the tri-colored family is more interesting than its habit
of drumming,--

"The ceaseless rap
Of the yellow-hammer's tap,
Tip-tap,