THE DOWNY WOODPECKER 165 



the spring. They are songless birds, and yet all 

 are musicians ; they make the dry limbs eloquent 

 of the coming change. Did you think that loud, 

 sonorous hammering which proceeded from the 

 orchard or from the near woods on that still 

 March or April morning was only some bird get- 

 ting its breakfast? It is Downy, but he is not rap- 

 ping at the door of a grub ; he is rapping at the 

 door of spring, and the dry limb thrills beneath 

 the ardor of his blows. 



A few seasons ago, a downy woodpecker, prob- 

 ably the individual one who is now my winter 

 neighbor, began to drum early in March in a 

 partly decayed apple-tree that stands in the edge 

 of a narrow strip of woodland near me. When 

 the morning was still and mild I would often 

 hear him through my window before I was up, or 

 by half -past six o'clock, and he would keep it up 

 pretty briskly till nine or ten o'clock, in this re- 

 spect resembling the grouse, which do most of 

 their drumming in the forenoon. His drum was 

 the stub of a dry limb about the size of one's 

 wrist. The heart was decayed and gone, but the 

 outer shell was hard and resonant. The bird 

 would keep his position there for an hour at a 

 time. Between his drummings he would preen 

 his plumage and listen as if for the response of 

 the female, or for the drum of some rival. How 



