CARPENTERS IN FEATHERS 161 



blew away, his glossy bluish black and white feathers, laid 

 on in big patches, were almost as conspic\ious as his red 

 head, throat, and upper breast. 



All the woodpeckers have musical tastes. Tin roofs, 

 leaders, and gutters everywhere are popular tapping places. 

 Certain dry, dead, seasoned limbs of hardwood trees re- 

 sound better than others and a woodpecker in love is sm-e 

 to find out the best one in the spring when he beats a rolling 

 tattoo in the hope of charming his best beloved. He has 

 no need to sing, which is why he doesn't. 



Fence posts are the red-head's favorite resting places. 

 From these he will make sudden sallies in mid-air, like a 

 flycatcher, ^fter a passing insect; then return to his post. 



The blue jay has the thrifty habit of storing nuts for the 

 proverbial rainy day, and the shrike hangs up his meat to 

 cure on a thorn tree like a butcher. Red-headed wood- 

 peckers, who are especially fond of beechnuts, acorns, and 

 grasshoppers, hide them away, squirrel fashion, in tree 

 cavities, in fence holes, crevices in old barns, between 

 shingles on the roof, behind bulging boards, in the ends of 

 railroad ties, in all sorts of queer places, to feast upon them 

 in winter when the land is lean. Who knows whether 

 other woodpeckers have hoarding places? The sapsucker, 

 the hairy and the downy woodpeckers also like beechnuts; 

 the flicker prefers acorns; but do they store them for winter 

 use? The red-head's thrifty habit was only recently dis- 

 covered: has it been only recently acquired? It must be 

 simpler to store the summer's surplus than to travel to a 

 land of plenty when winter comes. Heretofore this red- 

 headed cousin has been reckoned a migratory member of 

 the home-loving woodpecker clan, but only where he could 

 not find plenty of food to keep him through the winter. 



