WINTER NEIGHBORS 141 



is not surprising that they should have found out 

 that there is music in a dry, seasoned limb which 

 can be evoked beneath their beaks. 



A few seasons ago, a downy woodpecker, proba- 

 bly the individual one who is now my winter neigh- 

 bor, began to drum early in March in a partly de- 

 cayed 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 respect 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 de- 

 cayed 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 swift his head would go when he was 

 delivering his blows upon the limb ! His beak wore 

 the surface perceptibly. When he wished to change 

 the key, which was quite often, he would shift his 

 position an inch or two to a knot which gave out 

 a higher, shriller note. When I climbed up to 

 examine his drum he was much disturbed. I did 

 not know he was in the vicinity, but it seems he 

 saw me from a near tree, and came in haste to the 

 neighboring branches, and with spread plumage and 

 a sharp note demanded plainly enough what my 



