THE BIRDS SURPRISED 267 



rest. It was the home of a pair of wood- 

 peckers, said my host, whose loud peculiar 

 cries at once proclaimed them the yellow- 

 breasted woodpecker or sapsucker. Theirs 

 was an inconspicuous establishment in the 

 edge of the woods, in the dead stub of a 

 white birch twelve or fifteen feet high, 

 which hung over the water. 



The birds had selected the situation when 

 all was quiet around, and great must have 

 been their surprise and dismay when the 

 camp began to turn out its noisy people, 

 and the boat-house delivered up its contents 

 of canoes and boats. Then the silent path 

 beside them became a highway, logs were 

 drawn up out of the lake with great crash- 

 ing and shouting to horses, and men began 

 to build a wharf directly before their door. 

 Their stub, indeed, was in the way of this 

 work, and it would have been cut down 

 but for the kindness of my host, who would 

 not have it disturbed while the birds were 

 using it. 



At first, before all this confusion, the birds 

 announced their coming and going with their 

 usual loud nasal call, one of the most remark- 



