WOOD NOTES WILD. 31 



oftener, longer, and louder, than the cuckoo, using the 

 same melodic variety of a minor second, which is the 

 least possible. 



The golden-wings are geniuses at a frolic. When two 

 or more of them are together they have a brisk chase of it 

 round and up the trunks of the great trees and out on the 

 big limbs, crying, — 



Wake up, wake np, wake up, wake up. 



We have no true singing-bird so large as this wood- 

 pecker. 



The bright hues of the tanager and the oriole may 

 attract the eye quicker than his, but no other of our birds 

 displays the whole world of color in every conceivable 

 combination. These birds are frequenters of meadows 

 and pastures ; they like to be on the ground and to dig in 

 it. When they rise, they swing away through the air in 

 great billowy lines of indescribable grace. Wilson takes 

 much pains in describing the ingenuity and perseverance 

 of these birds in digging out their nests. " I have seen," 

 he says, " where they have dug first five inches straight 

 forward, and then downward more than twice that dis- 

 tance, through a solid black oak." He further states that 

 they work " till a very late hour in the evening, thumping 

 like carpenters;" also that "the male and female work 

 alternately." 



The golden-winged woodpecker has many surprises in 

 store for them that do not know him. It will be some- 



