WOODPECKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 75 



"Yes, father, I be up, and middlin' easy, fur 

 Luce hev' been over an' got yer supper cooked, 

 an' set the place tu rights a bit. You git yer 

 snowy things off, an' settle down easy to yer 

 supper." 



" Ah, I will that ; but tu see ye in yer chair 

 easy like will do me as much good as what I'm 

 goin' to hev'. This 'ere snow's thawin' away 

 fast ; an' in a loo place, mother, when the sun 

 wus out, I heerd one o' them 'ere little nut- 

 cracker chaps a-tryin' tu tune up with his 

 coortin' whistle ; warmer weather's comin', an' 

 you'll soon git better agin." . . . 



The wryneck, with its pencilled plumage, 

 the grey cuckoo's courier in advance, will only 

 be briefly noticed, as I have written of him 

 elsewhere. Like the fern-owl, the bird reaches 

 us from a foreign shore. Both are welcome 

 visitors, one heralding the spring for the 

 wryneck shouts directly genial showers fall 

 the other the early summer, for the " heave 

 jar " churs and chases his insect prey when 

 settled weather, the first of summer, has really 

 set in. From my earliest years, when I was 

 lifted up to see the bird sitting on her eggs, 

 in some of the holes so numerous in the fruit 

 trees of that old orchard so well known to me 



