16 THE WOODPECKERS 



music there is in it. Most if not all woodpeck- 

 ers drum occasionally, but drumming is the spe- 

 cial accomplishment of the sapsucker. He is 

 easily first. In Maine, where they are abun- 

 dant, they make the woods in springtime re- 

 sound with their continual rapping. Early in 

 April, before the trees are green with leaf, or 

 the pussy-willows have lost their silky plump- 

 ness, when the early round-leafed yellow violet 

 is cuddling among the brown, dead leaves, I 

 hear the yellow - bellied sapsucker along the 

 borders of the trout stream that winds down 

 between the mountains. The dead branch of 

 an elm-tree is his favorite perch, and there, ele- 

 vated high above all the lower growth, he sits 

 rolling forth a flood of sound like the tremolo 

 of a great organ. Now he plays staccato, 

 detached, clear notes ; and now, accelerating his 

 time, he dashes through a few bars of impetu- 

 ous hammerings. The woods reecho with it; 

 the mountains give it faintly back. Beneath 

 him the ruffed grouse paces back and forth on 

 his favorite mossy log before he raises the pal- 

 pitating whirr of his drumming. A chickadee 

 digging in a rotten limb pauses to spit out 

 a mouthful of punky wood; and the brown 

 Vanessa, edged with yellow, first butterfly of 

 the season, flutters by on rustling wings. So 



