AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 179 



But, to return to the burglar. In April, a little party of us went to 

 spend a few days in our summer cottage, on the shore of Buzzard's 

 Bay. It had been our custom for several years to do this when the 

 arbutus blossomed, and never before had we found any evidence of 

 occupation of the cottage during our absence; but what was our sur- 

 prise, as we approached the cottage, to find that it had been entered, 

 and that forcibly, not by door or window, but by a neat hole, high up 

 in the wall. Our neighbors had often suffered in the same way, but 

 this was our first experience with bird burglary. The hole gave him 

 an entrance into one of the chambers in the second story, and there, on 

 the floor were the chips and splinters dropped during the drilling. 

 What he stood upon while he was at work was a mystery, since the 

 wall of the house was made of smooth, painted boards with no chance 

 for a foothold, such as the bark of a tree would offer. Perhaps he 

 worked upon the wing. One very good authority on birds speaks of 

 the Woodpecker as being "perpetually in a hurry." His activity cer- 

 tainly is marvelous. 



Nothing was done to the hole that day, and early the next morning 

 the occupant of the room, awakened by the whir of wings, saw the burg- 

 lar himself just poised before the opening. He did not enter, however, 

 but flew away. Before our return home, a small wooden box was pro- 

 cured and nailed over the hole on the inside with the hope that the bird 

 would come again and make his nest in it. A month later we went to 

 the cottage again to spend Decoration Day there, As we entered the 

 long front room in the first story, into which the light was admitted by 

 one large window, the others being closed with shutters, we noticed a 

 general air of disorder, that was very unusual in a room that had been 

 closed and was presumable empty. A tennis racket was thrown down 

 from its place, papers were thrown about, and other things dis- 

 turbed. On crossing to the shuttered window, the window sill was 

 found to be pecked and mutilated from one side to the other, and the 

 sash was badly splintered. The floor was also littered with chips. 

 Eager to learn what had happened to the box which had been nailed 

 over the hole, we went up to the chamber above, thinking that perhaps 

 we should find some little "peckers" in the box. The door of the room 

 stood open, and in the dim light, as this room was also shuttered, we 

 could see the box still nailed over the opening, but no signs of a nest. 

 Instead of building up, the "burglar-bird" had amused himself by tear- 

 ing down. Not satisfied with making one hole for entrance into the 

 room, he had made three large, irregular openings in the box. The 

 wood was thin and soft, and so he appeared to have kept at it for the 



