226 THE NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [s:9-dec.. 1909 



districts are already making this outing an annual affair, and 

 letting it replace the school picnic. Next year we hope to ex- 

 tend this work, for many applications for excursions have been 

 received. 



The first requisite for successful nature-study work is to show 

 that there is something worth looking at and thinking about 

 everywhere, and these big excursions serve a very useful purpose 

 in stimulating local inquiry and local talk. The amount of 

 individual teaching may be small, but still each and all will 

 probably carry away as many ideas as they can assimilate for the 

 one day. 



We find geography in the field an excellent basis for nature- 

 study. The geography is always there and is generally easily 

 read (geological maps are supplied for many districts). Bird 

 life, soil formation, plant life and animal life follow naturally 

 and provide variety. 



HOURS WITH THE FLICKERS 



By EDNA RUSSELL THAYER 

 Worcester, Mass. 



[Editor's Note. — In thi.s magazine for December, 1906, Miss Thayer 

 reported a series of relay observations which groups of Professor Hodge's 

 students made on the day's work of various birds during the nesting sea- 

 son. It was very suggestive to teachers and pupils, and in a form likely 

 to stimulate attempts at similar continuous observations. The following 

 account is a useful supplement to the first article, for it shows what 

 one observer inay see in a series of days. These two articles, and a 

 similar one by Miss Mann, in the magazine for December, 1908, deserve 

 reading by pupils in connection with bird study. A limited number of 

 copies of December, 1906 and 1908, are in stock and for sale at five cents 

 per copy.] 



Upon my arrival at camp on June 25, 1908, I was told that 

 there was a flickers' nest in the southern side of an old apple tree. 

 The birds had bored an opening very much the shape of a top, 

 circular at its upper end and pointed at the lower, in the trunk of 

 the tree just three feet above the ground. They had then dug 

 out a nest fourteen inches deep and five inches across. The 

 ground was covered at the foot of the tree with chips, few of 

 which were larger than a quarter of an inch. 



There were young, but how old I do not know, as the nest was 

 not discovered until the day before it was shown me. They were 

 old enough, however, to cry softly as I scratched upon the l:)ark 

 of the tree in imitation of the old birds. 



