96 WAKE-ROBIN 



down in the heart of the old tree, he should have 

 been so alert and watchful as to catch the slightest 

 sound from without. 



The woodj^eckers all build in about the same 

 manner, excavating the trunk or branch of a de- 

 cayed tree and depositing the eggs on the fine frag- 

 ments of wood at the bottom of the cavity. Though 

 the nest is not especially an artistic work, — requir- 

 ing strength rather than skill, — yet the eggs and 

 the young of few other birds are so completely 

 housed from the elements, or protected from their 

 natural enemies, the jays, crows, hawks, and owls. 

 A tree with a natural cavity is never selected, but 

 one which has been dead just long enough to have 

 become soft and brittle throughout. The bird goes 

 in horizontally for a few inches, making a hole per- 

 fectly round and smooth and adapted to his size, 

 then turns downward, gradually enlarging the hole, 

 as he proceeds, to the depth of ten, fifteen, twenty 

 inches, according to the softness of the tree and the 

 urgency of the mother bird to deposit her eggs. 

 While excavating, male and female work alternately. 

 After one has been engaged fifteen or twenty min- 

 utes, drilling and carrying out chips, it ascends to 

 an upper limb, utters a loud call or two, when its 

 mate soon appears, and, alighting near it on the 

 branch, the pair chatter and caress a moment, then 

 the fresh one enters the cavity and the other flies 

 away. 



A few days since I climbed up to the nest of the 

 downy woodpecker, in the decayed top of a sugar 



