8 ON BOS Sg COMMON. 
or rarity made it posssible to be reasonably cer- 
tain when the arrival and departure took place ; 
and in so very limited a field it is of course 
comparatively easy to keep track of the same in- 
dividual during his stay, and, so to speak, be- 
come acquainted with him. I remember with 
interest several such acquaintanceships. 
One of these was with a yellow-bellied wood- 
pecker, the first I had ever seen. He made his 
appearance one morning in October, along with 
a company of chickadees and other birds, and 
at once took up his quarters on a maple-tree 
near the Ether monument. I watched his 
movements for some time, and at noon, hap- 
pening to be in the same place again, found 
him still there. And there he remained four 
days. I went to look at him several times 
daily, and almost always found him either on 
the maple or on a tulip tree a few yards dis- 
tant. Without question the sweetness of maple 
sap was known to Sphyropicus varius long be- 
fore our human ancestors discovered it, and this 
particular bird, to judge from his actions, must 
have been a genuine connoisseur; at all events 
he seemed to recognize our Boston tree as of a 
sort not to be met with every day, although 
to my less critical sense it was nothing but an 
ordinary specimen of the common Acer dasy- 
carpum. He was extremely industrious, as is 
