BIRD COURTSHIP 83 



another stump or tree. Among all the woodpeckers 

 the drum plays an important part in the match- 

 making. The male takes up his stand on a dry, 

 resonant limb, or on the ridgeboard of a building, 

 and beats the loudest call he is capable of. The 

 downy woodpecker usually has a particular branch 

 to which he resorts for advertising his matrimonial 

 wants. A favorite drum of the high-holes about me 

 is a hollow wooden tube, a section of a pump, which 

 stands as a bird-box upon my summer-house. It is 

 a good instrument; its tone is sharp and clear. A 

 high-hole alights upon it, and sends forth a rattle 

 that can be heard a long way off. Then he lifts up 

 his head and utters that long April call, Wick, wick, 

 ivick, wick. Then he drums again. If the female 

 does not find him, it is not because he does not make 

 noise enough. But his sounds are all welcome to 

 the ear. They are simple and primitive and voice 

 well a certain sentiment of the April days. As I 

 write these lines I hear through the half-open door 

 his call come up from a distant field. Then I hear 

 the steady hammering of one that has been for three 

 days trying to penetrate the weather boarding of 

 the big icehouse by the river, and reach the sawdust 

 filling for a nesting- place. 



Among our familiar birds the matchmaking of 

 none other is quite so pretty as that of the goldfinch. 

 The goldfinches stay with us in lorn flocks and clad 

 in a dull-olive suit throughout the winter. In May 

 the males begin to put on their bright summer 

 plumage. This is the result of a kind of super- 



