BIRD COURTSHIP 83 



truly comical. He spreads his tail, he puffs 

 out his breast, he throws back his head, and 

 then bends his body to the right and to the 

 left, uttering all the while a curious musical 

 hiccough. The female confronts him unmoved, 

 but whether her attitude is critical or defensive I 

 cannot tell. Presently she flies away, followed 

 by her suitor or suitors, and the little comedy is 

 enacted on another stump or tree. Among all 

 the woodpeckers the drum plays an important 

 part in the matchmaking. The male takes 

 up his stand on a dry, resonant limb, or on the 

 ridgeboard of a building, and beats the loudest 

 call he is capable of. The downy woodpecker 

 usually has a particular branch to which he 

 resorts for advertising his matrimonial wants. 

 A favorite drum of the highholes about me is 

 a hollow wooden tube, a section of a pump 

 which stands as a bird box upon my summer- 

 house. It is a good instrument; its tone is 

 sharp and clear. A highhole alights upon it 

 and sends forth a rattle that can be heard a 

 long way off. Then he lifts up his head and 

 utters that long April call, Wick, wick, wick, 

 wick. Then he drums again. If the female 

 does not find him it is not because he does not 

 make noise enough. But his sounds are all 

 welcome to the ear. They are simple and 

 primitive and voice well a certain sentiment of 

 the April days. As I write these lines I hear 

 through the half-open door his call come up 

 from a distant field. Then I hear the steady 

 hammering of one that has been for three days 



