AUTUMN 45 



hawks, — as well as of great use as a fore- 

 ground, — and the hill woods beyond are 

 the resort of pileated woodpeckers. I have 

 often seen and heard them here, but there is 

 no sign of them to-day. 



Though these fine birds are generally de- 

 scribed — one book following another, after 

 the usual fashion — as frequenters of the 

 wilderness, and though it is true that they 

 have forsaken the more thickly settled parts 

 of the country, I think I have never once 

 seen them in the depths of the forest. To 

 the best of my recollection none of our 

 Franconia men have ever reported them 

 from Mount Lafayette or from the Lonesome 

 Lake region. On the other hand, we meet 

 them with greater or less regularity in the 

 more open valley woods, often directly upon 

 the roadside ; not only in the Landaff Val- 

 ley, but on the outskirts of the village toward 

 Littleton and on the Bethlehem road. In 

 this latter place I remember seeing a fellow 

 prancing about the trunk of a small orchard 

 tree within twenty rods of a house ; and not 

 so very infrequently, especially in the rum- 

 cherry season, they make their appearance 



