POKING AROUND FOR BIRDS' NESTS 135 



the pruning has been criminally unscientific, so that 

 the end of a branch has rotted back in the center. 

 There was such an old tree in my former orchard, 

 purposely left with hollow stumps sticking out in 

 all directions, and here a pair of bluebirds nested 

 every year, until my next-door neighbor put up an 

 artificial bluebird-box, and the ungrateful creatures 

 went over to that ! The baby birds are very pretty, 

 and are said to be easily tamed, though I would 

 never keep any bird in captivity myself except a 

 crow, which, after all, is not a captive, because he 

 roams the place. In my present orchard all the 

 trees are full of holes, and I hope all the holes are 

 going to be full of bluebirds. 



Like the bluebird, the great crested flycatchers 

 nest in old apple-tree cavities often in the same 

 ones the bluebird has used. That pretty year- 

 round orchard-dweller, the downy woodpecker, also 

 lives in tree cavities, but he insists on making his 

 own hole. Not so his big cousin, the flicker. The 

 flicker will make a hole if necessary, or he will use 

 what he finds to his purpose. We had in our yard a 

 huge hickory, cut off by lightning years ago about 

 twenty-five feet from the ground. The tree was 

 evidently partly hollow and a tin cap had been 

 nailed over the break. Before we took the place 

 some bird had drilled a hole about a foot below this 

 cap into the tree, a flicker, perhaps, as the hole was 

 as big as a silver dollar. The first winter we were 

 there a screech-owl lived in the tree, and his mourn- 

 ful whistle made melancholy the still winter nights. 

 But he did not nest there, and in the breeding sea- 

 son the tree was pre-empted by a pair of flickers, 



