WINTER NEIGHBORS 147 



latter. Another bird that I had under observation 

 also left his winter- quarters in the spring. This, 

 then, appears to be the usual custom. The wrens 

 and the nuthatches and chickadees succeed to these 

 abandoned cavities, and often have amusing disputes 

 over them. The nuthatches frequently pass the 

 night in them, and the wrens and chickadees nest 

 in them. I have further observed that in excavat- 

 ing a cavity for a nest the downy woodpecker 

 makes the entrance smaller than when he is excavat- 

 ing his winter-quarters. This is doubtless for the 

 greater safety of the young birds. 



The next fall the downy excavated another limb 

 in the old apple-tree, but had not got his retreat 

 quite finished when the large hairy woodpecker ap- 

 peared upon the scene. I heard his loud click, 

 elide, early one frosty November morning. There 

 was something impatient and angry in the tone that 

 arrested my attention. I saw the bird fly to the 

 tree where downy had been at work, and fall with 

 great violence upon the entrance to his cavity. 

 The bark and the chips flew beneath his vigorous 

 blows, and, before I fairly woke up to what he was 

 doing, he had completely demolished the neat, round 

 doorway of downy. He had made a large, ragged 

 opening, large enough for himself to enter. I drove 

 him away and my favorite came back, but only to 

 survey the ruins of his castle for a moment and 

 then go away. He lingered about for a day or two 

 and then disappeared. The big hairy usurper passed 

 a night in the cavity ; but on being hustled out of 



