Familiar Studies of Wild Birds 



birds, even rabbits, but altogether does much 

 more good than harm. As it was now June, 

 somewhere in or about the marsh in a dry tuft 

 of grass, which was merely matted down to 

 form a nest, the mate of the hawk observed 

 was sitting on her usual complement of four 

 to six bluish eggs. 



Red-headed woodpeckers are plentiful in 

 the dunes the year round, their numbers being 

 augmented in the fall, when they congregate 

 here to feed on the abundant crop of acorns. 

 Their low-pitched resonant "querl" rings out 

 to an accompaniment of rapping, and their 

 frolicking manoeuvres give a lively tone to the 

 landscape. Dropping into an oak top, one 

 will hang upside down onto a sagging bough, 

 while securing an acorn, which it takes to a 

 neighboring stump, wedges into the bark, and 

 then pecks at leisure. While thus engaged, 

 it squeals persistently, as if challenging others 

 to pursue it, and this they eagerly do, the pur- 



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