A RED-HEADED FAMILY. 9 



her of familiar voices ; then suddenly the 

 gavel of Campephilus sounded sharp and strong 

 a quarter-mile away. A few measured raps, 

 followed by a rattling drum-call, a space of si- 

 lence rimmed with receding echoes, and then 

 a trumpet-note, high, full, vigorous, almost start- 

 ling, cut the air with a sort of broadsword 

 sweep. Again the long-roll answered, from a 

 point nearer me, by two or three hammer-like 

 raps on the resonant branch of some dead cy. 

 press-tree. The king and queen were coming 

 to their palace. I waited patiently, knowing 

 that it was far beyond my power to hurry their 

 movements. It was not long before one of 

 the birds, with a rapid cackling that made the 

 wood rattle, came over my head, and went 

 straight to the stump, where it lit, just below 

 the lower hole, clinging gracefully to the trunk. 

 It was a superb specimen the female, and I 

 suspected that she had come to leave an egg. I 

 could have killed her easily with the little six- 

 teen-gauge breech-loader at my side, but I 

 would not have done the act for all the stuffed 

 birds in the country. I had come as a visitor 

 to this palace, with the hope of making the ac- 

 quaintance I had so long desired, and not as 

 an assassin. She was quite unaware of me, 

 and so behaved naturally, her large gold-amber 

 eyes glaring with that wild sincerity of ex- 

 pression seen in the eyes of but few savage 

 things. 



After a little while the male came bounding 

 through the air, with that vigorous galloping 

 flight common to all our woodpeckers, and lit 

 on a fragmentary projection at the top of the 

 stump. He showed larger than his mate, and 

 his aspect was more fierce, almost savage. 



