272 FROM BLOMIDON TO SMOKY, 



seemed to find little moisture in the wasting foun- 

 tains. The trees were losing vitality and becom- 

 ing dry. Then she sought the dead twigs at the 

 tops of last year's trees and flitted back and forth 

 among them, sunning herself. No perch pleased 

 her long, and when she wearied of them all she 

 darted back to the drills for a brief perfunctory 

 sip of the slow-moving sap. Her restlessness 

 seemed born of the season, and a symptom of 

 that fever of migration which was making all 

 bird-life throb more and more quickly. 



Although on September 25th, when I made 

 my last visit of the year to the orchard, I found 

 two sapsuckers still at work at the drills, no 

 humming-bird was with them. How long after 

 the 6th the vigorous little female remained I do 

 not know, for I was unable to watch the trees 

 during the middle of the month. 



Although at Chocorua I never have found a 

 sapsuckers' orchard without its attendant hum- 

 ming-birds, I am by no means sure that in other 

 localities where both birds occur the same com- 

 munity of interests is to be detected. During a 

 brief visit to Cape Breton in midsummer, 1893, 

 I kept close watch for sapsuckers and humming- 

 birds. Of the latter, not one came under my 

 eyes, although common testimony was that they 

 frequented the country. Of the sapsuckers I 

 found one flourishing colony among the alders 



