134 RED-HEADED WOODPECKER 



It is a rare pleasure to have a pair of Red- 

 heads nest on one's premises. At Rockford, 

 Illinois, on the grounds of Rockford College, the 

 handsome birds are so tame that the college girls 

 can watch them without danger of worrying 

 them ; but in most places they have been so much 

 annoyed that they are chary of their friendship, 

 and when you go to their neighborhood hide 

 behind a tree trunk and look out at you suspi- 

 ciously from the corner of one eye, scolding with 

 a loud rattling hrit-tar-rali which, if you approach 

 too near, Mr. Widmann says is indistinguishable 

 from that of the tree-frog. 



Major Bendire says that some of their nesting- 

 holes show remarkably neat workmanship, the 

 edges of the entrance-hole being beautifully 

 beveled off, and finished inside as smoothly as 

 with a fine rasp. On the treeless prairies he has 

 found them obliged to nest in telegraph poles 

 and similar places provided by man. Unlike the 

 Flickers, the Major says the Red-heads do not 

 feed their young by regurgitation, but bring them 

 their grasshoppers '' au naturel.' 



