160 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS. 



between shingles on the roofs of houses ; and in 

 several instances when their store-house was full, 

 the woodpeckers would take the precaution to 

 roof it over with a layer of empty hulls, or bits 

 of wood and bark. 



XLVIIL 



YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER. *- 



IN the spring the yellow-bellied woodpecker is 

 a mercurial Frenchman compared with the sober, 

 self-contained Englishmen, his cousins, the hairy 

 and downy. They contrast as scarlet and gray. 

 Even their dress marks them. The hairy and 

 downy are robed like grave philosophers in black 

 and white, the old fathers merely donning a red 

 cap for dignity. But though the sapsucker has 

 to be content with a mottled black and white coat, 

 besides a red cap, he wears a crimson frontlet, a 

 bib-shaped piece of crimson satin fastened close 

 under his chin, and bordering this a circlet of 

 black satin, below which, and falling to his feet, 

 is his pale yellow robe. 



In April and May, especially during courting, 

 the air is full of his boisterous cries. In the edge 

 of the woods, in the orchard, by the side of the 

 house, the excited birds flicker from tree to tree, 

 chasing each other about. Sometimes two of 

 them march up opposite sides of the same tree, 



