WINTER NEIGHBORS. 11 



are just as characteristically drummers as is the ruffed 

 grouse, and they have their particular limbs and stubs 

 to which they resort for that purpose. Their need of 

 expression is apparently just as great as that of the 

 song-birds, and it is not surprising that they should 

 have found out that there is music in a dry, seasoned 

 limb which can be evoked beneath their beaks. i 



A few seasons ago a downy woodpecker, probably 

 the individual one who is now my winter neighbor, 

 began to drum early in March in a partly decayed 

 apple-tree that stands in the edge of a narrow strip of 

 woodland near me. When the morning was still and 

 mild I would often hear him through my window be- 

 fore I was up, or b}^ half-past six o'clock, and he 

 would keep it up pretty briskly till nine or ten o'clock, 

 in this respect resembling the grouse, which do most 

 of their drumming in the forenoon. His drum was 

 the stub of a dry limb about the size of one's wrist. 

 The heart was decayed and gone, but the outer shell 

 was hard and resonant. The bird would keep his po- 

 sition there for an hour at a time. Between his drum- 

 mings he would preen his plumage and listen as if for 

 the response of the female, or for the drum of some 

 rival. How swift his head would go when he was 

 delivering his blows upon the limb ! His beak wore 

 the surface perceptibly. When he wished to change 

 the key, which was quite often, he would shift his 

 position an inch or two to a knot which gave out a 

 higher, shriller note. When I climbed up to examine 

 his drum he was much disturbed. I did not know he 

 was in the vicinity, but it seems he saw me from a 

 near tree, and came in haste to the neighboring 

 branches, and with spread plumage and a sharp note 

 demanded plainly enough what my business was with 



