How to Attract the Birds 



musicians, though they can't sing a note. Songless 

 birds have found various ways of expressing their 

 sentiments. Some dance, some ogle, and none 

 is more ridiculous in his antics to woo the well- 

 beloved than the flicker, whose vocal accomplish- 

 ments are by no means to be despised. All the 

 woodpeckers delight in sound, however produced. 

 Hairy and Downy frequently tap on the tin roofs 

 and gutters of our houses simply because they 

 like the noise. A pair of red-headed woodpeckers 

 reared their family in a hollow tree next the railroad 

 track in the station-yard at Atlanta, where the smoke 

 of every passing locomotive enveloped their house ; 

 but engineers let ofT steam and do much bell-ringing 

 when about the yards, and these woodpeckers evi- 

 dently enjoyed the din enough to compensate them 

 for the smoke and publicity. 



To hear the kingfisher flying up stream advising 

 his mate that he is coming home, one might suspect 

 that he, too, is an instrumentalist, his instrument 

 being a policeman's rattle. The cuckoo also has a 

 peculiar rattle, kr-r-r-r-r-uck-uck-uck^ suggesting a 

 great tree-toad ; but neither of these birds may be 

 used to swell the short list of instrumental perform- 

 ances. Both are vocalists. 



PEERLESS MUSICIANS 



But when we speak of vocalists no one has in 

 mind either kingfisher or cuckoo, or the screaming 

 blue jay that goes roving about through the autumn 

 woods with a troop of noisy fellows, or his cousin 

 the crow, or the wheezy grackles whose notes sug- 



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