4 Bird Portraits 
All the woodpeckers nest in holes, which they chisel out of 
decayed or even live wood. A circular entrance leads to a vertical 
passage, and this to a wide chamber some distance below. No lining 
of moss or feathers is put in; the pure white, nearly round eggs 
are laid directly on the chips at the bottom of the cavity, and the 
young birds after a few days hang by their claws to the side of 
the hole. Young Flickers, like young Humming-birds, are fed by 
their parents with a liquid food, which is pumped into their wide- 
opened mouths, the parent's bill being thrust far into the young one’s. 
The Flicker is one of the few birds that frequently return to 
the old nest. Most birds, contrary to the common notion, instead 
of refurnishing the weather-beaten and insecure structure into which 
their last year’s home has been converted by snow, rain, and wind, 
prefer to build a new one. The material is everywhere at hand, and 
time is not so precious before the young are hatched. The Flicker, 
however, having built in a stout limb, can safely return for several 
seasons to the same cavity, or, if this becomes insecure, can cut 
another in the same trunk. Branches are often seen where three or 
four round openings show the tenements of several generations of 
these noisy birds. South of Massachusetts, Flickers generally spend 
the whole year in one spot, and in winter live largely on berries; a 
favorite food at this season is the berry of the poison ivy. In the 
fall, the rum cherry becomes a resort for all fruit-loving species. 
The Flicker, though not known to raise a second brood, has a 
second period of song, so that we hear again in June the shout, or 
mating call, of the early spring days. Besides this high-pitched 
wick, wick, wick, the Flicker utters, when startled, a curious note 
like worroo; a sharp ft'ow is the call to its kind, and the syllables 
yucker, yucker, often accompanied by ludicrous bowing with wings 
and tail outspread, are used to show affection. 
