42 Birds of Lakeside and Prairie 



and sing unmolested just above the heads of four boys who 

 were passing through the sling-shot and bird-nesting age. 

 Thinking it barely possible that the boys, intent on play, had 

 not noticed the bird, I purposely called their attention to it 

 and asked them what it was. They were not backward in 

 expressing surprise at my supposed ignorance, and the answer 

 to my question was, " Don't you know a redbird, mister?" 

 Then they told me there were lots of redbirds around, and 

 that they could whistle "bully." It is more than likely that 

 the very commonness of certain birds of brilliant plumage 

 saves them from destruction. It is to the unaccustomed that 

 human attention is most sharply attracted. In the East in 

 many places the red-headed woodpecker has been practically 

 exterminated. He never was as common a bird there as he 

 is to-day with us in the Middle Western country. His rarity 

 and beauty invited destruction, and it came. In the prairie 

 towns and villages the red-headed woodpecker is as common 

 as the robin, and despite his beauty, the small boy passes 

 him by with barely a thought. 



The red-headed woodpecker came into my mind while we 

 stood at the gate talking to the little Hoosier lads; and fol- 

 lowing came a thought that not one of these birds had we 

 seen, though I had understood from a friend who had visited 

 the locality before that the red-headed woodpeckers were 

 abundant. When we had left the little village behind us we 

 accepted standing-room in a grain wagon, offered by a boy 

 who was driving home from the railroad station. I asked 

 him about the red-headed woodpeckers. He said that gener- 

 ally they were the commonest birds that they had, but that 

 the fall before they had all disappeared, and that he had not 

 seen one all through the winter nor thus far in the spring. I 



