The West KikI (.r I he l!;ini in wiiicli t lif FlicktM> Nt'st 



AT THE SIGN OF THE NORTHERN FLICKER. 



r.V AI.TIIEA R. SHERMAN. 



The apartment buildin.Q" that displays flicker-sig'ns all the 

 year around is our barn. These sig-ns consist of the holes 

 chiseled through the siding; the marks left by the birds' muddy 

 loes and tails, and the splashes of gastric juice which some- 

 times adher to the walls of the barn for a distance of two 

 feet aljove and seven feet below the hole, and remain many 

 weeks before they are washed off by the rain. 



The date of the making of the first hole has not been kept, 

 but as long ago as 1S07 a pair of Flickers nested in the space 

 into which this hole opens, a space four by fifteen by twenty- 

 three inches formed by a board parallel to the rafters, nailed 

 to the studding which kept the hay back from the wall of the 

 barn. For purposes of (observation it was covered with a mov- 

 able board which had a peep-hole in it. In this accidentally 

 formed cavity three years out of four Flickers raised their 

 young, but in the spring of 1903 there came a frantic female 

 that would not settle in the old nesting place in the east end 

 until the pair had drilled two other holes, one in the west end, 

 and the other in the south side of the barn. Back of each of 

 these new holes a box was placed in the following spring, but 



