342 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



New Hampshire, where it is almost exclusively known by that 

 name. He is evidently a bird of a good deal of intelligence, though 

 undeniably cranky at times. He is quick to know where he is not 



molested, and, once he has con- 

 vinced himself that the surround- 

 ings are not likely to prove dan- 

 gerous, will take up his abode 

 perhaps in an apple tree a few 

 yards from the house, and will 

 return summer after summer as 

 long as he is allowed to remain in 

 possession. For the last ten or 

 fifteen years, perhaps longer, a 

 pair have nested in this manner in 

 an apple tree on the farm where 

 I write, and have succeeded in 

 bringing up a promising brood 

 each season without serious mis- 

 haj). When the tree they for- 

 merly occupied was cut down, 

 they merely moved to another 

 still nearer the house, and made 

 their hole in a large branch 

 hardly a dozen feet from the 

 ground. They were obliged to 

 through the green saf)wood at first, and then through a 

 inches of dry but extremely hard wood beneath, before 

 reaching the decayed heart of the branch, but their bills were 

 equal to the task, and they soon had a gourd-shaped cavern some 

 eighteen inches in depth, with the doorway opening to the south. 

 They seldom exhibit much impatiencfe about going to housekeeping 

 each spring, and it is usually pretty well along in May before they 

 have done their spring house-cleaning. This consists merely in clear- 

 ing out the bottom of the hole and perhaps enlarging it slightly. 

 There is nothing that really deserves the name of nest, the eggs 

 being laid on the rotten wood or loose chips at the bottom, after the 

 manner of the woodpeckers. 



The birds are rather quiet, but not at all timid during the nesting 

 season, coming and going at all hours of the day, quite regardless as 

 to whether any one is watching them or not. But soon after the 

 eggs are hatched there may be heard a low murmur issuing from 

 the opening of the nest, which increases in loudness day by day until 

 it is a murmur no longer, but a kind of stifled crying and squalling, 

 which rises to a chorus of shrieks on the arrival of the old birds, or, in 



Thkee-toed Wooupkcker. 



cut 

 few 



