YELLOW HAMMER. 49 
of a tree or an old stub you recognize him as a 
“woodpecker.” With the help of your glass you 
also see the bright red crescent on the back of his 
head, for which he is probably called ‘ crescent 
bird.” There he clings, fastening his claws firmly 
in the bark, and bracing himself with the stiff 
quills of his tail, so that his convexity of outline 
almost amounts to a half circle as he bends for- 
ward to “hammer” on the wood. This is the 
best time to use your glass, for he is quite a shy 
bird, and except when engaged in his favorite 
work, is hard to observe satisfactorily, even at a 
respectful distance. His dark back proves to be 
barred with black, and following him as he circles 
up the tree you get a glimpse of his breast that 
discloses a large black collar separating his thickly 
spotted breast from the plain light throat. 
The song of the yellow hammer is like the Ger- 
man th—he hasn’t any. He has a variety of cries 
and ealls, however, and a trill that sounds like a 
great rattle shaken in the air. Mr. Colburn at- 
tributes twelve of his names to imitations of these 
various sounds; clape, cave-due, fiddler, flicker, 
hittock, hick-wall, ome-tuc, piute or peerit, wake- 
up, yaffle, yarrup, and yucker. 
Mr. Ingersoll refers “ flicker ” to his flight, and 
if you watch your yellow hammer till he flies off 
to another tree you will see that the adiective de- 
scribes his peculiar but characteristic woodpecker 
flight better than the most labored description. 
