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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



feet in length was brought to the nest-site, and passed five times round 

 the larger, and twice about the smaller of the two twigs, with overlaps 

 due to working each string-end independently. Having thus fixed it 

 firmly at the middle, the intelligent course would have been to have 

 incorporated the loose ends with the nest. Instead, they were both left 

 flying free, so that this labor, however begun, was not intelligently 

 finished. The eighteen' inches of free string really served to render the 

 nest conspicuous. 



Woodpecker Drilling for Insects. — While in the Maine woods on 

 August 13, my attention was drawn to the freshly drilled hole of a 



Fig. 23. Double " Loop-knot " made by Robin about Pine-branch close to 

 its Nest, illustrating an act probably instinctively begun, but not intelligently finished, 

 since the ends of the twine were not incorporated with the structure, but left hang- 

 ing free. 



woodpecker (Fig. 24), in a pine tree, which was two feet in diameter 

 at the base, and apparently sound. This hole, which was remarkable 

 for its size, had been cut at a point seven feet up, through nearly five 

 inches of solid sap wood, to the heart of the tree, and was 9f inches 

 long, 5^ inches wide, and 8 inches deep. These dimensions would 

 imply the removal of over three hundred cubic inches of wood, and the 

 chips, some of which were four inches long (Fig. 25), were plainly the 

 work of our largest northern species, the pileated woodpecker or log 

 cock. 



A moment's inspection showed that this woodpecker had tunneled 



