A TRAMP IN THE CATSKILLS 89 



warbler, and seemed to be engaged in catching in- 

 sects. 



The birds were unusually plentiful and noisy about 

 the head of this lake; robins, blue jays, and wood- 

 peckers greeted me with their familiar notes. The 

 blue jays found an owl or some wild animal a short 

 distance above me, and, as is their custom on such 

 occasions, proclaimed it at the top of their voices, and 

 kept on till the darkness began to gather in the woods. 



I also heard here, as I had at two or three other 

 points in the course of the day, the peculiar, resonant 

 hammering of some species of woodpecker upon the 

 hard, dry limbs. It was unlike any sound of the kind 

 I had ever before heard, and, repeated at intervals 

 through the silent woods, was a very marked and char- 

 acteristic feature. Its peculiarity was the ordered suc- 

 cession of the ,raps, which gave it the character of a 

 premeditated performance. There were first three 

 strokes following each other rapidly, then two much 

 louder ones with longer intervals between them. I 

 heard the drumming here, and the next day at sun- 

 set at Furlow Lake, the source of Dry Brook, and in 

 no instance was the order varied. There was melody 

 in it, such as a woodpecker knows how to evoke from 

 a smooth, dry branch. It suggested something quite 

 as pleasing as the liveliest bird-song, and was if any- 

 thing more woodsy and wild. As the yellow-bellied 

 woodpecker was the most abundant species in these 

 woods, I attributed it to him. It is the one sound that 

 still links itself with those scenes in my mind. 



At sunset the grouse began to drum in all parts of 

 the woods about the lake. I could hear five at one 

 time, thump, thump, thump, thump, thr-r-r-r-r-r-rr. 



