30 Twelve Months With 



and the vigorous, nasal "kee-yer!" are full of all 

 the joy and optimism of the season, and almost 

 any morning at the first streak, of dawn one of 

 them may be heard vigorously hammering with 

 his bill upon any available object which offers a 

 good sounding board. He seems to enjoy the 

 rolling tattoo as much as his call, and it has a 

 certain music of its own. An old, dilapidated 

 wren box in my yard has been visited almost daily 

 by a flicker. After alighting upon it and looking 

 around him with a lordly air, he proceeds to ham- 

 mer on the top of the empty and unusually sonorous 

 old box, and after each strumming he raises his 

 head erect, and sends forth his ringing clarion of 

 "wick! wick! wick! wick!" as if to emphasize 

 his very great importance in the whole scheme 

 of nature, — ^which program of alternate drum- 

 ming and calling is carried on usually for fifteen 

 or twenty minutes. He is thus seen to be equally 

 skilled in vocal and instrumental music. Flickers 

 are very obviously attracted by any object which 

 affords them a noisy sounding board for their 

 drumming. I have known them to hammer on 

 loose tin or metal on the roof of houses and barns 

 until it became necessary to remove or cover the 

 attractive metal to avoid the noisy din. As this tat- 

 tooing sound is heard chiefly during the breeding 

 season, it is considered by some as a love song, or 

 a love call to the bird's mate. 



The flicker has many aliases, as many as thirty- 

 six having been compiled, including, among the 



