WINTER NEIGHBORS. 73 
formed, though I suspect that they use the abandoned 
holes of the males of the previous year. 
The particular woodpecker to which I refer drilled 
his first hole in my apple-tree one fall four or five 
years ago. ‘This he occupied till the following spring, 
when he abandoned it. The next fall he began a hole 
in an adjoining limb, later than before, and when it 
was about half completed a female took possession of 
his old quarters. Iam sorry to say that this seemed 
to enrage the male very much, and he persecuted the 
poor bird whenever she appeared upon the scene. He 
would fly at her spitefully and drive her off. One 
chilly November morning, as I passed under the tree, 
I heard the hammer of the little architect in his cav- 
ity, and at the same time saw the persecuted female 
sitting at the entrance of the other hole as if she would 
fain come out. She was actually shivering, probably 
from both fear and cold. I understood the situation 
at a glance; the bird was afraid to come forth and 
brave the anger of the male. Not till I had rapped 
smartly upon the limb with my stick did she come 
out and attempt to escape; but she had not gone ten 
feet from the tree before the male was in hot pur- 
suit, and in a few moments had driven her back to 
the same tree, where she tried to avoid him among 
the branches. A few days after, he rid himself of 
his unwelcome neighbor in the following ingenious 
manner: he fairly scuttled the other cavity; he drilled 
a hole into the bottom of it that let in the light and 
the cold, and I saw the female there no more. I did 
not see him in the act of rendering this tenement 
uninhabitable ; but one morning, behold it was punc- 
tured at the bottom, and the circumstances all seemed 
to point to him as the author of it. There is probably 
