WINTER NEIGHBORS. 155 



A few seasons ago a downy woodpecker, probably 

 the individual one who is now my winter neighbor, 

 began to drum early in March in a partly decayed 

 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 decayed 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 ex- 

 amine 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 neighbor- 

 ing branches, and with spread plumage and a sharp 

 note demanded plainly enough what my business was 

 with his drum. I was invading his privacy, desecrat- 

 ing his shrine, and the bird was much put out. After 

 some weeks the female appeared ; he had literally 



