64 BULLETIN OF THE NUTTALL 



my, man, the eggs and young of this family enjoy a more complete 

 immunity from danger than those of any other. The cunning crow 

 and noisy jay, both ever on the alert for a frolic after bird's eggs, 

 are here balked ; while rain cannot enter, and the mink, weazel, and 

 other noxious animals find their keen noses of little avail. Snakes 

 may, and doubtless do sometimes enter the holes of the larger species, 

 but even they probably bestow more of their attentions on ground 

 and bush building birds. All the endless little artistic contrivances 

 for concealment so artfully employed by other birds in the construc- 

 tion of their nests are here needless, and consequently ignored. In 

 view of the manifest advantages attendant upon this mode of nidifi- 

 cation, it is a matter of no little surprise that Woodpeckers are not 

 more numerous, especially when it is taken into consideration that 

 the habit of roosting in holes at all seasons of the year must protect 

 the adults, as well as young, from many nocturnal dangers. Lack 

 of suitable opportunities for nesting, or obtaining food, may doubtless 

 be taken as explanatory of the comparative fewness of these birds in 

 the older settled sections. In fact, the wilderness is the true home 

 of the Woodpeckers, and in all primitive forest regions they abound. 

 There Nature reigns supreme, and in defiance of artificial laws and 

 cultivated ideas of sylvan beauty, allows her woods to fill with the 

 decaying forms of her dead subjects, — huge moss-clad trunks, pic- 

 turesque in shape, and by their grim, gaunt aspect adding wildness 

 to an already picturesque scene. In such congenial haunts these 

 birds find all their wants supplied, food being plenty and easily ob- 

 tained, and the selection of a nesting site a matter of no difficulty. 

 Taking the seven commoner New England species, four — Hylotomus 

 pileatus, Sphyrapims varius, and the two species of Picoides — will 

 be found almost exclusively in the forest ; while of the remaining 

 three, the two species of Piciis are decidedly more partial to the 

 woods than the cultivated districts. Colaptes alone seems to have 

 no preferences, and is no more abundaut in the Northern forests 

 than on treeless Nantucket, in which latter place it makes the best 

 of circumstances and drills its holes in gate-posts and ice-houses. 



Throughout the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and in 

 most sections of Northern Maine, the Yellow-bellied Woodpeckers 

 outnumber all the other species in the summer season. They ar- 

 rive from the South, where they spend the winter, from the middle 

 to the last of April, and, pairing being soon effected, commence at 

 once the excavation of their nests. The trees usually selected are 



