BIRD CURIOS. 37 



with the scarlet berry. Swinging gracefully across 

 the railway, he presently alighted on a stake of the 

 meadow fence, where he seemed to place the cherry 

 in a sort of crevice, and then sip from it in a 

 somewhat dainty, half-caressing way, as if it were 

 rarely billsome. My curiosity being excited, I eyed 

 him awhile, and then, determined to reconnoitre, 

 climbed the wire fence over into the meadow, and 

 drove him away from his menu. There, in a small 

 pocket of the fence-stake, apparently hollowed out, 

 at least partially, by the bird himself, lay the cherry, 

 its rind punctured in several places, where the 

 diner-out had thrust in his bill to sip the juicy pulp 

 underneath, — a sort of woodpecker's table d'hote. 

 The crevice had a rank odor of cherries dried in 

 the sun, — a proof that it had been used for a 

 dining-table for some time. The legs and wings 

 of several kinds of insects were also strewn about. 

 Since that day I have found many of these pockets 

 in fence-stakes, posts, dead tree-boles, and old 

 stumps, where woodpeckers have placed their 

 dainties to be eaten at their convenience. 



You have doubtless seen these red-heads catching 

 insects on the wing. This they do with as much 

 agility as the wood-pewee, sometimes performing 

 evolutions that are little short of marvellous. From 

 my study window I once watched one of these 

 aeronauts as he sprang from the top of a tall oak- 

 tree in the grove near by, and mounted up, up, up 

 in graceful terraces of flight, until he had climbed 

 at least twice the height of the tree, when he sud- 



