48 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS. 



XIII. 



YELLOW HAMMER ; FLICKER. 



WHEN people attempt to give their children 

 descriptive names they generally meet with the 

 success of the colored woman who christened her 

 little girl " Lillie White " only to see her grow 

 to be the darkest of her ebony family. But local 

 bird names are more like nicknames ; they usually 

 touch facts, not hopes, and hint the most striking 

 features of coloring, song, flight, and habit. As 

 you have discovered, this is true of the bluebird, 

 chimney swift, catbird, keel-tailed blackbird, hum- 

 ming-bird, and meadow -lark; and looking over 

 the yellow hammer's thirty-six common names 

 given by Mr. Colburn in the Audubon Magazine 

 for June, 1887, you will get a fair description of 

 the bird. As he flies over your head in the field 

 your first impression is of a large yellow bird 

 he is of the size of the crow blackbird and 

 on the list you find "yellow hammer," "yellow 

 jay," and " pique-bois jaune " ; but as the yellow 

 light comes mainly from his bright yellow shafts 

 and the gold of the underside of his wings 

 and tail, you have also "yellow-shafted wood- 

 pecker," and " golden-winged woodpecker." His 

 dark back and the large white spot at the base of 

 his tail, though conspicuous in flight, are not dig- 

 nified by a name ; but when he lights on the side 



