8 ON BOSTON COMMON. 



or rarity made it posssible to be reasonably cer- 

 tain when the arrival and departure took place ; 

 and in so very limited a field it is of course 

 comparatively easy to keep track of the same in- 

 dividual during his stay, and, so to speak, be- 

 come acquainted with him. I remember with 

 interest several such acquaintanceships. 



One of these was with a yellow-bellied wood- 

 pecker, the first I had ever seen. He made his 

 appearance one morning in October, along with 

 a company of chickadees and other birds, and 

 at once took up his quarters on a maple-tree 

 near the Ether monument. I watched his 

 movements for some time, and at noon, hap- 

 pening to be in the same place again, found 

 him still there. And there he remained four 

 days. I went to look at him several times 

 daily, and almost always found him either on 

 the maple or on a tulip tree a few yards dis- 

 tant. Without question the sweetness of maple 

 sap was known to Sphyropicus varius long be- 

 fore our human ancestors discovered it, and this 

 particular bird, to judge from his actions, must 

 have been a genuine connoisseur ; at all events 

 he seemed to recognize our Boston tree as of a 

 sort not to be met with every day, although 

 to my less critical sense it was nothing but an 

 ordinary specimen of the common Acer dasy- 

 carpum. He was extremely industrious, as is 



