ILLINOIS AUDUBON SOCIETY 27 



plead with the management of the place for the protection of the 

 birds, pointing out their value as protection for the trees and 

 their added beauty and attractiveness to the resort. 



R. V. Rathbone 



A Joke on an Ornithologist 



The July llth-17th issue of the Rockford Republican, tells an 

 amusing story at the expense of some "professor-naturalist." 

 This is the story : 



Early this spring a woodpecker drilled a big, deep hole in a 

 telephone pole which stands near Rock River, south of Rockford. 

 A few weeks ago a lineman for the Central Union Telephone 

 company came along and nailed a strip of tin over the entrance 

 to the woodpecker's home. 



A few days later Louis Stewart, who lives on North Second 

 street, while fishing, heard a great commotion. Two wood- 

 peckers were fluttering about the entrance to their home from 

 which they had been evicted by the telephone lineman. Stewart 

 believing in fair play for the birds, climbed the telephone pole 

 and with a rock and a small nail managed to perforate the tin 

 around the hole and removed it, leaving the portion of the tin 

 about the hole nailed to the pole. 



When the tin was removed the pair of woodpeckers moved 

 into their home and again took possession. A few days later, 

 the lineman who had evicted the birds, happened that way and 

 saw that the tin had been removed. He thought the woodpeckers 

 had done the job and he told his friends about it. A Rockford 

 professor-naturalist heard of it and sought out the lineman. 



The lineman guided the professor-naturalist to the wood- 

 pecker's home. The professor took a number of pictures of the 

 nest and the pair of woodpeckers. Then he wrote a story about 

 the unusual performance of the birds which he sold to a natur- 

 alist's magazine. The naturalist's friends are now waiting anx- 

 iously the publication of the story of how a pair of woodpeckers 

 pecked through tin and beat a cruel landlord who evicted them 

 from their home. 



The Address is 1649-10 So. La Salle St., Chicago 



Members and friends of the Illinois Audubon Society are re- 

 minded to send in orders for copies of the newly published 

 Check List of Birds of Illinois. It sells for fifty cents a copy, 

 postpaid. Why not buy several copies to sell to interested per- 

 sons in your community? Every time you sell a copy you are 

 doing a favor to the purchaser and helping to increase the num- 

 ber of intelligent observers of bird life. 



