WINTER FROLICS. 57 



Quite a respectable colony of flickers found a 

 home during the winter in my favorite woodland. 

 Unlike the other birds mentioned, they do not wade 

 about in the snow. No ; to their minds, a bare 

 tree-wall is the desideratum for a tramping-ground ; 

 and if they need more exercise than promenading 

 affords them, they can take to wing and go bounding 

 from one part of the woods to another. A flicker is 

 a staid bird when he does n't happen to be in a play- 

 ful mood. You would have laughed at one in De- 

 cember which was clinging to a branch high up in a 

 tree with his head right in front of a woodpecker 

 hole, over which he seemed to be standing guard. 

 There he clung, as if that hollow contained the most 

 precious treasure, and would not desert his post, 

 although I leaped about on the ground, shouted 

 loudly, and even flung my cap in the air like a wild 

 man, to frighten him away. How comical he looked 

 in his role of sentinel ! He never smiled or even 

 winked, but left such trifling to the human scatter- 

 brain below, who was so ill-mannered as to laugh 

 at a well-behaved woodpecker. Perhaps he had a 

 winter store of food stowed away in that cavity, and 

 thought he had to guard it well, now that a real 

 brigand had come prowling about the premises. 



