More Noise than Music." 



i8i 



What a wild scream it gave ! It is needless to add 

 that it never returned. Like all woodpeckers, this 

 golden-winged one has a range of vocal utterances, 

 and can make any amount of noise by other means 

 than drumming. But the term ** noise" is not ap- 

 propriate. It is always a welcome sound, a suggestive 

 one, that calls up pleasant 

 pictures only, and therefore 

 is nearer akin to true music 

 than many a wild **yawp" 

 that rings through crowded 

 parlors. Even the loose 

 harp-string ke-yeh has a 

 pleasant ring to it, and the 

 zvJiit-cJieJi, three or four 

 times repeated, is a peculiar 

 utterance that at once at- 

 tracts our attention. Flick- 

 ers are birds of the whole 

 year, and it is hard to say 

 when they are most enter- 

 taining. I like them best, 

 perhaps, in August. They 

 are then a meadow bird, and 

 a ground bird at that, 

 leaving the trees much of 



the time and chasing crickets over the pastures. 

 They have not yet learned the value of mimiciy 

 as a protection, and so get up as you approach, 

 showing a great deal of white feather, but not alto- 

 gether through fear. Their coloring, did they but 



i6 



Downy Woodpecker. 



