66 EVERYDAY BIRDS 
pretty sure to find two or three flickers all winter 
long about a certain farm, the stone walls of 
which are overrun with this handsome but un- 
wholesome vine, although it is hard to imagine 
that the dry, stony fruit should yield much in 
the way of nourishment, even to a woodpecker. 
As spring comes on, the flicker becomes 
numerous and very noisy. His best known vocal 
effort 1s a prolonged /hi-hi-hi, very loud and ring- 
ing, and kept up until the listener wonders where 
the author of it gets his wind. This, I think, is 
the bird’s substitute for a song. He has at all 
times a loud, unmusical yawp, — a signal, I sup- 
pose, — and in the mating season especially he 
utters a very affectionate, conversational wicker 
or flicker. Hvery country boy should be familiar 
with these three notes. 
But besides being a vocalist, — we can hardly 
call him a singer, — the flicker is a player upon 
instruments. He is a great drummer; and if 
any one imagines that woodpeckers do not enjoy 
the sound of their own music, he should watch 
a flicker drumming with his long bill on a bat- 
tered tin pan in the middle of a pasture. Morn- 
ing after morning I have seen one thus engaged, 
drumming lustily, and then cocking his head to’ 
listen for an answer; and Paderewski at his 
daily practice upon the piano could not have 
