194 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



Jan. 8, 1854. Stood within a rod of a downy wood- 

 pecker on an apple tree. How curious and exciting the 

 blood-red spot on its hindhead ! I ask why it is there, 

 but no answer is rendered by these snow-clad fields. It 

 is so close to the bark I do not see its feet. It looks be- 

 hind as if it had on a black cassock open behind and 

 showing a white undergarment between the shoulders 

 and down the back. It is briskly and incessantly tap- 

 ping all round the dead limbs, but rarely twice in a 

 place, as if to sound the tree and so see if it has any 

 worm in it, or perchance to start them. How much he 

 deals with the bark of trees, all his life long tapping 

 and inspecting it ! He it is that scatters those frag- 

 ments of bark and lichens about on the snow at the 

 base of trees. What a lichenist he must be ! Or rather, 

 perhaps it is fungi makes his favorite study, for he 

 deals most with dead limbs. How briskly he glides 

 up or drops himself down a limb, creeping round and 

 round, and hopping from limb to limb, and now flitting 

 with a rippling sound of his wings to another tree ! 



April 4, 1855. The rows of white spots near the end 

 of the wings of the downy [woodpecker] remind me of 

 the lacings on the skirts of a soldier's coat. 



Dec. 14, 1855. A little further I heard the sound 

 of a downy woodpecker tapping a pitch pine in a little 

 grove, and saw him inclining to dodge behind the stem. 

 He flitted from pine to pine before me. Frequently, 

 when I pause to listen, I hear this sound in the orchards 

 or streets. This was in one of these dense groves of 

 young pitch pines. 



June 20, 1856. Walking under an apple tree in the 



