72 Handbook of Nature-Study 



4. How does the downy climb a tree trunk? How does it descend ? 

 How do its actions differ from those of the nuthatch? 



5. How are the woodpecker's toes arranged to help it climb a tree 

 trunk? How does this arrangement of toes differ from that of other 

 birds? 



6. How does the downy use its tail to assist it in climbing? What 

 is the shape of the tail and how is it adapted to assist? 



7. What does the downy eat and where does it find its food? 

 Describe how it gets at its food. What is the shape of its bill and how is 

 it fitted for getting the food? Tell how the downy 's tongue is used to 

 spear the grub. 



8. W T hy does the downy not go South in winter? 



9. Of what use is this bird to us? How should we protect it and 

 entice it into our orchards? 



10. Write an English theme on the subject "How the downy builds 

 its nest and rears its young". 



Supplementary reading The Woodpeckers, Eckstorm; Bird Neigh- 

 bors, Blanchan; Winter Neighbors, Burroughs. 



A few seasons ago a downy woodpecker, probably the individual one who is now 

 my winter neighbor, began to drum early in March in a partly decayed apple-tree 

 that stands in the edge of a narrow strip of woodland near me. When the morning 

 was still and mild I would often hear him through my window before I was up, or by 

 half-past six o'clock, and he would keep it up pretty briskly till nine or ten o'clock, 

 in this respect resembling the grouse, which do most of their drumming in the forenoon. 

 His drum was the stub of a dry limb about the size of one's wrist. The heart was 

 decayed and gone, but the outer shell was loud and resonant. The bird would keep 

 his position there for an hour at a time. Between his drummings he would preen his 

 plumage and listen as if for the response of the female, or for the drum of some rival. 

 How swift his head would go when he was delivering his blows upon the limb! His 

 beak wore the surface perceptibly. When lie wished to change the key, which was quite 

 often, he ivould shift his position an inch or two to a knot which gave out a higher, 

 shriller note. When I climbed up to examine his drum he it'as much disturbed. I did 

 not know he was in the vicinity, but it seems he saw me from a near tree, and came 

 in haste to the neighboring branches, and with spread plumage and a sharp note de- 

 manded plainly enough what my business u>as with his drum. I was invading his 

 privacy, desecrating liis shrine, and the bird was much put out. After some weeks 

 the female appeared; he had literally drummed up a mate; liis urgent and oft-repeated 

 advertisement was answered. Still the drumming did not cease, but was quite as 

 fervent as before. If a mate could be won by drumming she could be kept and enter- 

 tained by more drumming; courtship should not end with marriage. If the bird felt 

 musical before, of course he felt much more so now. Besides that, the gentle deities 

 needed propitiating in behalf of the nest and young as well as in behalf of the mate. 

 After a time a second female came, when there was war between the tivo. I did not see 

 them come to blows, but I saw one female pursuing the other about the place, and giving 

 her no rest for several days. She was evidently trying to run her out of the neighbor- 

 hood. Now and then she, too, would drum briefly as if sending a triumphant message 

 to her mate. Winter Neighbors, JOHN BURROUGHS. 



