YELLOW HAMMER. 51 
deep and the white eggs are laid on the chips at 
the bottom. The usual number of eggs is six. 
A gentleman tells me a curious case of miscal- 
culation on the part of a yellow hammer that built 
in an old apple-tree near his house. He says the 
old birds kept bringing food to the nest so long 
that he thought something must be wrong, and 
went to investigate. The nest was just within his 
reach, and he found that, as he had supposed, the 
birds were more than large enough to fly. In fact 
they were so large they could not get out of the 
mouth of the nest, and were actually imprisoned 
there! The gentleman got an axe and cut out 
the opening for them, and the next morning the 
brood had flown. 
Knowing the habits of the yellow hammer, you 
wonder why there is no name to credit him with 
the work he does for us in eating the boring ants 
that eviscerate our noblest trees ; and you are still 
more surprised to find no name to stamp him a 
field and ground woodpecker, because his devo- 
tion to ant-hills and other ground preserves is one 
of the characteristics that distinguish him from 
the other woodpeckers. Possibly the name “ wood- 
pecker lark” may refer to his custom of hunting 
in the fields. 
