BIRD CURIOS. 34 
with the scarlet berry. Swinging gracefully across 
the railway, he presently alighted on a stake of the 
meadow fence, where he seemed to place the cherry 
iia sort Of Crevice, and then sip from it in a 
somewhat dainty, half-caressing way, as if it were 
rarely billsome. My curiosity being excited, I eyed 
him awhile, and then, determined to reconnoitre, 
climbed the wire fence over into the meadow, and 
drove him away from his menu. There, in a small 
pocket of the fence-stake, apparently hollowed out, 
at least partially, by the bird himself, lay the cherry, 
its rind punctured in several places, where the 
diner-out had thrust in his bill to sip the juicy pulp 
underneath, —a sort of woodpecker’s fable a’héte. 
The crevice had a rank odor of cherries dried in 
the sun,—a proof that it had been used for a 
dining-table for some time. ‘The legs and wings 
of several kinds of insects were also strewn about. 
Since that day I have found many of these pockets 
in fence-stakes, posts, dead tree-boles, and old 
stumps, where woodpeckers have placed their 
dainties to be eaten at their convenience. 
You have doubtless seen these red-heads catching 
insects on the wing. This they do with as much 
agility as the wood-pewee, sometimes performing 
evolutions that are little short of marvellous. From 
my study window I once watched one of these 
‘aeronauts as he sprang from the top of a tall oak- 
tree in the grove near by, and mounted up, up, up 
in graceful terraces of flight, until he had climbed 
at least twice the height of the tree, when he sud- 
