WINTER NEIGHBORS. 81 



drilling through the bark with great ease and quick 

 ness. Then, when the day was warm, and the Bap ran 

 freely, he would have a regular sugar-maple debauch, 

 sitting there by his wells hour after hour, and as fast 

 as they became filled sipping out the sap. This he 

 did in a gentle, caressing manner that was v» t\ e 

 gestive. He made a row of wells near the foot of the 

 tree, and other rows higher up, and he would hoi 

 up and down the trunk as these became filled. He 

 would hop down the tree backward with the utmost 

 ease, throwing his tail outward and his head inward at 

 each hop. When the wells would freeze or his thirst 

 become slaked, he would ruffle his feathers, draw him- 

 self together, and sit and doze in the sun on the side.- 

 of the tree. He passed the night in a hole in an 

 apple-tree not far off. He was evidently a young bird, 

 not yet having the plumage of the mature male or fe- 

 male, and yet he knew which tree to tap and where to 

 tap it. I saw where he had bored several maples in 

 the vicinity, but no oaks or chestnuts. I nailed op a 

 fat bone near his sap-works: the downy woodpecker 

 came there several times a day to dine; the nut-hated 

 came, and even the snow-bird took a taste occasion- 

 ally ; but this sap-sucker never touched it; the sweet 

 of the tree sufficed for him. This woodpecker does 

 not breed or abound in my vicinity; only stray speci* 

 mens are now and then to be met with in the c 

 months. As spring approached, the one I refer tc 

 took his departure. 



I must bring my account of my neighbor in the tree 

 down to the latest date ; so after the lapse of a year I 

 add the following notes. The last day of February 

 was bright and springlike. I heard the first sparrow 



