WINTER NEIGHBORS. 81 
drilling through the bark with great ease and quick 
ness. Then, when the day was warm, and the sap ran 
freely, he would have a regular sugar-maple debauch, 
sitting there by his wells hour after hour, and as fast 
as they became filled sipping out the sap. This he 
did in a gentle, caressing manner that was very sug: 
gestive. He made a row of wells near the foot of the 
tree, and other rows higher up, and he would hop 
up and down the trunk as these became filled. He 
would hop down the tree backward with the utmost 
ease, throwing his tail outward and his head inward at 
each hop. When the wells would freeze or his thirst 
become slaked, he would ruffle his feathers, draw him- 
self together, and sit and doze in the sun on the side 
of the tree. He passed the night in a hole in an 
apple-tree not far off. He was evidently a young bird, 
not yet having the plumage of the mature male or fe- 
male, and yet he knew which tree to tap and where to 
tap it. I saw where he had bored several maples in 
the vicinity, but no oaks or chestnuts. I nailed up a 
fat bone near his sap-works: the downy woodpecker 
came there several times a day to dine; the nut-hatch 
came, and even the snow-bird took a taste occasion- 
ally ; but this sap-sucker never touched it ; the sweet 
of the tree sufficed for him. This woodpecker does 
not breed or abound in my vicinity ; only stray speci- 
mens are now and then to be met with in the colder 
months. As spring approached, the one I refer to 
took his departure. 
I must bring my account of my neighbor in the tree 
down to the latest date ; so after the lapse of a year I 
add the following notes. The last day of February 
was bright and springlike. I heard the first sparrow 
