WINTER NEIGHBORS. 159 



bark, or cambium layer, next to the hard wood of the 

 tree. The health and vitality of the branch are so 

 seriously impaired by them that it often dies. 



In the following winter the same bird (probably) 

 tapped a maple-tree in front of my window in fifty- 

 six places ; and when the day was sunny, and the 

 sap oozed out, he spent most of his time there. He 

 knew the good sap-days, and was on hand promptly 

 for his tipple ; cold and cloudy days he did not ap- 

 pear. He knew which side of the tree to tap, too, 

 and avoided the sunless northern exposure. When 

 one series of well-holes failed to supply him, he' would 

 sink another, drilling through the bark with great 

 ease and quickness. Then, when the day was warm, 

 and the sap ran freely, he would have a regular sugar- 

 maple debauch, sitting there by his wells hour after 

 hour, and as fast as they became filled sipping out 

 the sap. This he did in a gentle, caressing manner 

 that was very suggestive. He made a row of wells 

 near the foot of the tree, and other rows higher up, 

 and he would hop up and down the trunk as these 

 became filled. He would hop down the tree back- 

 ward with the utmost ease, throwing his tail outward 

 and his head inward at each hop. When the wells 

 would freeze up or his thirst become slaked, he 

 would ruffle his feathers, draw himself together, and 

 sit and doze in the sun on the side of the tree. He 

 passed the night in a hole in an apple-tree not far off. 

 He was evidently a young bird, not yet having the 

 plumage of the mature male or female, and yet he 



