POPULAR WOODPECKERS 



THERE are two birds in Newton, the pre- 

 sent summer, that have perhaps attracted 

 more attention than any pair of Massachu- 

 setts birds ever attracted before; more, by 

 a good deal, I imagine, than was paid to a 

 pair of crows that, for some inexplicable 

 reason, built a nest and reared a brood of 

 young a year ago in a back yard on Beacon 

 Hill, in Boston. I refer to a pair of red- 

 headed woodpeckers that have a nest (at 

 this moment containing young birds nearly 

 ready to fly) in a tall dead stump standing 

 on the very edge of the sidewalk, like a 

 lamp-post. The road, it should be said, is 

 technically unfinished; one of those "pri- 

 vate ways," not yet " accepted " by the city 

 and therefore legally "dangerous," though 

 in excellent condition and freely traveled. 

 If the birds had intended to hold public 

 receptions daily, as they have done with- 



