WILDWOOD WAYS 



him let go his upside-down hold, turn a 

 flip-flap in the air, and light on another 

 tree some distance away. I think Stock- 

 ton got his idea of negative gravity from 

 watching the nuthatches. If I were 

 mean enough to shoot one I should as 

 soon expect to see him fall up into the 

 sky as down to the earth, so usually re- 

 gardless and defiant is he toward the 

 proper and accepted force of gravity. 



Quite prim and upright as compared 

 with these shifty wrigglers is the third 

 boon companion of these winter day ex- 

 peditions, the downy woodpecker. You 

 are not so apt to find him as the other 

 two, for his work is deeper and more 

 laborious and they are likely to flit flight- 

 ily away while he still drills and ogles. 

 Yet you can hear him much farther away 

 than the others, and it is not difficult to 

 slip quietly up and see him at his work. 



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