292 THE BIRDS OF MAINE 



engaged in similar occupation but never heard one so very 

 happy and talkative as this one was. 



These birds feed on almost every kind of insect imaginable, 

 taking their food from the trees, and from the ground. They 

 also eat a great variety of fruits and berries^ mostly wild things 

 here in Maine, and with us very seldom indeed take any culti- 

 vated fruits. Indeed in the fall when most cultivated fruits 

 are ripe, they are most industriously engaged in hunting up 

 ant hills and feeding on their occupants and have little time 

 to waste in the cultivated lands. 



The species nest in old stubs and dead trees, excavating a 

 good sized and deep hole. Usually they may be found along 

 streams and about the shores of ponds, in clearings, pastures 

 and orchards, in fact nesting almost anywhere that a suitable 

 stub can be found. I have even known them to nest in one 

 lonely dead tree in the middle of a big field. Both birds help 

 to excavate the nest and the scattered chips and sawdust below 

 indicate clearly that there is a nest above. 



Both birds incubate by turns and the male feeds the female 

 quite frequently when she is incubating as well as taking his 

 turn at the task of incubation. I have never, however, known 

 the female to feed her mate while he was on the nest. 



When the male arrives with food, he utters a peculiar low 

 chuckling call, the head of the female soon appears at the 

 entrance, and after taking the proffered tidbits withdraws. 



Eggs are generally to be found about the last of May and 

 the first two weeks of June, and these are a pure glossy white 

 in color. The number laid has ranged from five to fourteen 

 in cases where the birds were allowed to complete the set before 

 being disturbed, but in cases where as an experiment an egg 

 has been taken each day, leaving only one egg each time as a 

 nest egg, large numbers of eggs have been secured. A case 

 of this kind is recorded in the Young Oologist, June, 1884, 

 p. 26, where the experimenter, Charles L. Philips of Taunton, 

 Mass., took seventy-one eggs in seventy-three days, a most 



