114 BIRDS'-NESIS. 



slight snap. Instantly the hammering ceased, and a 

 scarlet head appeared at the door. Though I re- 

 mained perfectly motionless, forbearing even to wink 

 till my eyes smarted, the bird refused to go on with 

 his work, but flew quietly off to a neighboring tree. 

 What surprised me was, that amid his busy occupa- 

 tion down in the heart of the old tree, he should have 

 been so alert and watchful as to catch the slightest 

 sound from without. 



The woodpeckers all build in about the same man- 

 ner, excavating the trunk or branch of a decayed tree 

 and depositing the eggs on the fine fragments of wood 

 at the bottom of the cavity. Though the nest is not 

 especially an artistic work, requiring strength 

 rather than skill, yet the eggs and the young of 

 few other birds are so completely housed from the 

 elements, or protected from their natural enemies 

 the jays, crows, hawks, and owls. A tree with a 

 natural cavity is never selected, but one which has 

 been dead just long enough to have become soft and 

 brittle throughout. The bird goes in horizontally for 

 a few inches, making a hole perfectly round and 

 smooth and adapted to his size, then turns downward, 

 gradually enlarging the hole, as he proceeds, to the 

 depth of ten, fifteen, twenty inches, according to the 

 softness of the tree and the urgency of the mother- 

 bird to deposit her eggs. While excavating, male 

 and female work alternately. After one has been 

 engaged fifteen or twenty minutes, drilling and carry- 

 mg out chips, it ascends to an upper limb, utters a loud 



