552 AVES—WOODPECKER. 
in the interior at that season, you hear them screaming from the adjoining 
woods, rattling on the dead limbs of trees, or on the fences, where they are 
perpetually seen flitting from stake to stake on the roadside before you. 
Wherever there are trees of the wild cherry, covered with ripe fruit, there 
you see tnem busy among the branches; and in-passing orchards, you may 
easily know where to find the earliest, sweetest apples, by observing those 
trees on or near which this bird is skulking; for he is so excellent a con- 
noisseur in fruit, that wherever an apple or pear is found broached by him, 
it is sure to be among the ripest and best flavored. When alarmed, he seizes 
a capital one by sticking his open bill deep into it, and bears it off to the 
woods. When the Indian corn is in its ripe, succulent, and .milky state, he 
attacks it with great eagerness, opening a passage through the numerous 
folds of the husk, and feeding on it with voracity. The girdled or deadened 
timber, so common among the corn-fields in the back settlements, are his 
favorite retreats, whence he sallies out to make his depredations. He is 
fond of the ripe berries of the sour gum, and pays regular visits to the cherry 
trees, when loaded with fruit. Towards fall, he often approaches the barn 
or farmhouse, and raps on the shingles and weather-boards. He is of a gay 
and frolicsome disposition ; and half a dozen of the fraternity are frequently 
seen diving and vociferating round the high dead limbs of some tree, pur- 
suing and playing with each other, amusing the passenger with their gam- 
bols. Their note or cry is shrill and lively, and so much resembles that of 
a species of tree-frog, which frequents the same tree, that it is sometimes 
difficult to distinguish the one from the other. 
Though this bird occasionally regales himself on fruit, yet his natura, 
