KINGLETS OF THE EVERGREENS 45 



The woodpecker showed the traits of a bustling business man. 

 With untiring energy he circled and re-circled the trunks of our 

 apple trees, leaving them moth-eaten and battered as he bored with 

 almost mathematical precision myriad holes in his search for insect 

 life and sap. It is Munchausenly said by some reckless tarradiddler 

 that the most beautiful markings glorifying the bird's-eye maple are 

 directly traceable to an injury to the tree made by this industrious 

 bird, who, if the statement were correct, might be called an arboreal 

 pearl manufacturer. The scientist solves the enigma with the state- 

 ment that they are wood imprisoned buds. 



The shrill, imperious note of command of the flicker or golden 

 woodpecker (next in size to the crow, and a leader among bird 

 captains of industry) awakened early spring morning echoes. 



The quarrelsome side of humanity divided honors among 

 the birds. Pronounced examples were seen in the frowsy-headed, 

 scolding wren, the noisy, pugnacious, bloodthirsty English sparrow 

 and the fighting shrike or butcher bird who brained alike both spar- 

 rows and field-voles. 



Kinglets of the evergreens were real kings in their province, 

 near neighbors to the redstart, another of our sweetest warblers. 

 The fitful, darting, uneven, swirling flight of the barn swallows 

 graphically pictures the forceful yet purposeless man who takes 

 long and roundabout journeys to go little distances in the realm 

 of finance and barter, unable to see the shorter cuts. 



The lilliputian, hawk-like, screaming, bow-winged chimney 

 swifts were continually in flight, their only alighting spot seeming 

 to be the chimney side. At times their progeny disturbed our slum- 

 bers with ghostly flutterings on the hearth at midnight's witching hour. 



In the highest peak of the granary roof nested that awkward 

 booby of the bird race, the barn owl, whose strangely weird screech- 

 ing of "to whit! to whoo!" so different from all other bird language, 

 broke the stillness of the summer nights, preceded often at dusk by 

 the sharp eerie shriek of the night hawk, which came out of the ether 

 like the cry of a lost soul as he circled aimlessly overhead.* 



Bats. 



Yes, there were plenty in one of our outbuildings ; harmless 

 creatures, in spite of their swift and startling comings and goings and 

 occasionally hair-raising poachings in the tabu realms of porch and 

 bedroom, in their search for mosquitoes and moths. 



Pirating Birds. 



Bird thievery was best exemplified in the nest-stealing cuckoo, 

 less parasitical, however, than his European cousin, and the love of 

 companionship in the polygamous cowbird who perched upon and 

 fed near the cattle, and was another nest-appropriating vagrant. 



The night hawk is in the front rank of the list of crepuscular goatsuckers. 



