TREE-TRUNK BIRDS 189 
A bacchant for sweets! ‘’Tis nectar I seek!” 
And he raps on the tree with his sharp-whetted beak ; 
And he drinks, in the wild March wind and the sun, 
The coveted drops, as they start and run. 
He girdles the maple round and round — 
Tis heart-blood he drinks at each sweet wound ; 
And his bacchanal song is the tap-tap-tap, 
That brings from the bark the clear-flowing sap. 
— Epitu M. Tuomas, in Bird-Lore. 
“How many kinds of Woodpeckers are there around 
here?”’ asked Eliza Clausen. ‘I didn’t know there was 
but one, the great big one, thick like a Pigeon, all speckled 
black and brown on top, with a red spot on his head and 
a big white spot over his tail. We had two down at our 
farm this summer, and they lived in a hole in the old 
wild cherry, and they laid real nice white eggs, just as 
white as our Leghorns.” 
“How’d you know they had white eggs?” asked Clary. 
“You can’t see into a Woodpecker’s hole.” 
“No; I could reach in, though. I didn’t keep the egg, 
and only looked at it, and one of the old birds bit me 
something fierce. They’re real plucky birds, anyway, 
whatever they are called, for nobody seems to give them 
the same name. Mother says they are Pigeon Wood- 
peckers, and Dad calls them Yallerhammers, and both 
names fit pretty well.” 
“There are half a dozen Woodpeckers to be found 
here, but the one that Eliza has described and the little 
black-and-white streaked Downy Woodpecker are the 
most familiar as well as the most useful of them all. 
As to Eliza’s Pigeon Woodpecker or Yellowhammer, 
