AUGUST BIRDS IN CAPE BRETON. 101 



Cape Breton is unquestionably a favorite 

 resort of woodpeckers, including the flicker, 

 hairy, downy, yellow-breasted, and black-backed, 

 and I doubt not the pileated also, although I 

 was not fortunate enough to see or hear him. 

 Flickers were common, and consorted much with 

 robins, as they do in New Hampshire during 

 their autumn migration. The hairy woodpeck- 

 ers were most abundant near highways, where 

 they frequented the telegraph poles and snake 

 fences. As I write, I cannot recall seeing a 

 hairy woodpecker anywhere except upon the 

 poles and fences close to roads, but I saw many 

 in those favored places. They were noticeably 

 tame, as most of the Cape Breton birds were, 

 and allowed me to drive close to them, while 

 they tapped gayly upon the bleached poles, or 

 scrambled over, through, and under the fence 

 sticks. Downy woodpeckers were less conspicu- 

 ous, and of the yellow-breasted I saw only one. 

 He was a young male that had been tapping 

 alder trunks in a thicket growing upon very 

 damp ground, on the edge of the Southwest Mar- 

 garee, near the point where it escapes from the 

 broad waters of Loch Ainslie. Nearly a dozen 

 trees had been bled by him or his family. As 

 soon as I entered the thicket he flew away ; and 

 although I awaited his return as long as time 

 permitted, neither he nor any other woodpecker 



