102 FROM BLOMIDON TO SMOKY. 



or humming-bird came to the sap fountains. 

 One of the birds which I most wished to see in 

 the northern woods was the black-backed, three- 

 toed woodpecker. I searched for him near Bad- 

 deck, at Loch Ainslie, and on my journey north- 

 ward from Baddeck to Ingonish, but he did not 

 appear. One morning, during my journey south- 

 ward from Cape Smoky, I arose very early and 

 visited the beautiful falls and canon of Indian 

 Brook, which are about twenty-five miles north 

 of Baddeck. In the deep woods near the falls I 

 met three of these sprightly birds. I had con- 

 cealed myself among the bushes to call birds 

 around me, and was watching Hudson's Bay tit- 

 mice, common chickadees, flickers, wary wood- 

 wise robins, juncos, and a few shy warblers, 

 when a woodpecker cry, manifestly not made by 

 a flicker, rang through the woods. High up on 

 a blasted tree was a medium-sized woodpecker, 

 somewhat resembling a sapsucker in attitude 

 and air of being up and a-coming. I squeaked 

 more vigorously, and he came nearer. Then a 

 second and a third arrived, and all of them ap- 

 proached me with boldness born of curiosity and 

 inexperience. They scolded and hitched up and 

 down tree trunks, flew nervously from one side 

 of me to the other, tapped protests on the 

 sounding bark, and behaved in general like true 

 woodpeckers. Differences in birds are what we 



