Winter Pensioners 



179 



may fret audibly, calling the other fellow greedy, for aught I know, 

 and asking him if he wants the earth ; but he maintains a respectful 

 distance. Birds, like wild things in general, have a natural reverence 

 for size and weight. 



The Chickadees are much the most numerous with us, but taking 

 the year together the Woodpeckers are the most constant. My notes 

 record them as present in the middle of October, i8gg, and now, in the 

 middle of October, 1900, they are still in daily attendance. Perhaps 

 there were a few weeks of midsummer when they stayed away, but I 

 think not. One pair built a nest somewhere in the neighborhood and 

 depended on us largely for supplies, much to their convenience and our 

 pleasure. As soon as the red-capped young ones were able to fly the 

 parents brought them to the tree and fed them with the suet (it was a 

 wonder how much of it they could eat), till they were old enough to 

 help themselves. And they act, old and young alike, as if they owned 

 the place. If a grocer's wagon happens to stop under the tree they wax 



DOWNY WOODPECKER 

 Bromide enlargement X 3- 



indignant, and remain so till it drives away. Even the black cat, 

 Satan, has come to acknowledge their rights in the case, and no longer 

 so much as thinks of them as possible game. 



I have spoken, I see, as if these three species were all ; but, not to 

 mention the Blue Jays, whose continual visits are rather ineffectively 

 frowned upon (they carry off too much at once), we had last winter, for 



