INTER FROLICS. 57 
Quite a respectable colony of flickers found a 
home during the winter in my favorite woodland. 
Unlike the other birds mentioned, they do not wade 
about in the snow. No; to their minds, a bare 
tree-wall is the desideratum for a tramping-ground ; 
and if they need more exercise than promenading 
affords them, they can take to wing and go bounding 
from one part of the woods to another. A flicker is 
a staid bird when he does n’t happen to be ina play- 
ful mood. You would have laughed at one in De- 
cember which was clinging to a branch high up ina 
tree with his head right in front of a woodpecker 
hole, over which he seemed to be standing guard. 
There he clung, as if that hollow contained the most 
precious treasure, and would not desert his post, 
although I leaped about on the ground, shouted 
loudly, and even flung my cap in the air like a wild 
man, to frighten him away. Howcomical he looked 
in his rdle of sentinel! He never smiled or even 
winked, but left such trifling to the human scatter- 
brain below, who was so ill-mannered as to laugh 
at a well-behaved woodpecker. Perhaps he had a 
winter store of food stowed away in that cavity, and 
thought he had to guard it well, now that a real 
brigand had come prowling about the premises. 
