BIRDS’—NESTS 97 
maple. For better protection against driving rains, 
the hole, which was rather more than an inch in 
diameter, was made immediately beneath a branch 
which stretched out almost horizontally from the 
main stem. It appeared merely a deeper shadow 
upon the dark and mottled surface of the bark with 
which the branches were covered, and could not be 
detected by the eye until one was within a few feet 
of it. The young chirped vociferously as I ap- 
proached the nest, thinking it was the old one with 
food; but the clamor suddenly ceased as I put my 
hand on that part of the trunk in which they were 
concealed, the unusual jarring and rustling alarming 
them into silence. The cavity, which was about 
fifteen inches deep, was gourd-shaped, and was 
wrought out with great skill and regularity. The 
walls were quite smooth and clean and new. 
I shall never forget the circumstance of observing 
a pair of yellow-bellied woodpeckers—the most 
rare and secluded, and, next to the red-headed, the 
most beautiful species found in our woods — breed- 
ing in an old, truncated beech in the Beaverkill 
Mountains, an offshoot of the Catskills. We had 
been traveling, three of us, all day in search of a 
trout lake, which lay far in among the mountains, 
had twice lost our course in the trackless forest, 
and, weary and hungry, had sat down to rest upon 
a decayed log. The chattering of the young, and 
the passing to and fro of the parent birds, soon 
arrested my attention. The entrance to the nest 
was on the east side of the tree, about twenty-five 
