134 A KED-THllOATED RED-HEAD. 



hiding-place to peep at me, and then jerking it 

 back. All the while a gleam of laughter seems to 

 shine in his eye, as if he were enjoying the game 

 of ''bo-peep." The tricksy fellow ! How much I 

 should like to wring his neck, just a little, out of 

 pure admiration of his cunning ways ! 



Although he seeks the deep seclusion of the 

 forest in the main, seldom deigning to come to the 

 city, yet when you visit him in his haunts he 

 seems to be more sociably disposed than any of his 

 kinsmen. He does not resent your intrusion, as 

 the golden-winged and red-bellied woodpeckers do, 

 but rather courts than shuns your society. In the 

 spring I seldom take a stroll in the woods without 

 receiving a courteous greeting from one or two 

 and sometimes a half-dozen of these woodpeckers, 

 which whirl about me, connecting the trees with 

 graceful festoons of flight. I am sure they talk to 

 me, expressing their pleasure at my presence, and 

 asking me innumerable questions about my busi- 

 ness, the book I hold in my hand, and the notes I 

 am jotting down ; but I am too stupid to learn the 

 woodpecker dialect, as I should, to hold intelli- 

 gent converse with them. 



One day dwells with special distinctness in my 

 memory ; it seems a pleasant arbor in my ornitho- 



