THE FLICKER 67 
looked more in earnest. At other times the 
flicker contents himself with a piece of resonant 
loose bark or a dry limb. 
One proof that this drumming — which is 
indulged in by woodpeckers generally —is a 
true musical performance, and not a mere drill- 
ing for grubs, is the fact that we never hear it 
in winter. It begins as the weather grows mild, 
and is as much a sign of spring as the peeping 
of the little tree-frogs — hylas — in the meadow. 
The flicker’s nest, as I have said, is built in a 
hole in a tree, often an apple-tree. Very noisy 
in his natural disposition, he keeps a wise silence 
while near the spot where his mate is sitting, and 
will rear a brood under the orchard-owner’s nose 
without betraying himself. The young birds 
are fed from the parent’s crop, as young pigeons 
and young hummingbirds are. The old bird 
thrusts its bill down the throat of the nestling 
and gives it a meal of partially digested food by 
what scientific people call a process of regurgita- 
tion. Farmers’ boys, who have watched pigeons 
feeding their squabs, will know aro an what is 
meant. 
