I12 STARLIGHT AND SUNSHINE. 
nest would appear to offer advantages of safety above those of 
other birds, as in truth it does, being at least secure against the 
hawks and owls and foxes. Yet it is by no means invulner- 
able. The black snake has a well-known fancy for young wood- 
peckers, and has often been surprised within the burrow, to the 
horror of the small boy oologist, perhaps, who is thinking only of 
the rare white eggs as he feels the depths of the hollow. The 
birds are also an easy prey to the murderous red squirrel, one 
of the archenemies of our nesting birds. Last year two of my 
woodpecker fledglings fell his victims, and only a few weeks since 
a whole family of flickers, which built in a large neighboring 
maple, were wellnigh exterminated by the same brigand. Two 
fully pinioned fledglings were found dead on the ground beneath 
the hole, each with an ugly gash at the throat, and one of which 
the squirrel was observed dragging by the head, while endeavor- 
ing to ascend the trunk—treating birds like pine-cones—drop- 
ping his cone first to enjoy it at his leisure. But one survivor 
of the brood was seen later, and this doubtless followed the fate 
of the others. The woodpeckers, in addition to serving their 
own ends, are also pioneers for a number of smaller fry among 
the birds, the deserted tunnels being in great demand for apart- 
ments, and often a prize won only by supreme strategy or victory 
among the bluebirds, nuthatches, creepers, wrens, and chickadees, 
though the last has been known to excavate its own domicile. 
Indeed, to the wren a hole of any kind possesses great attrac- 
tions, “it will build in anything that has an accessible cavity, 
' from an old boot to a bomb-shell,” says Burroughs. But whether 
it be a palatial tin box, a post-hole, a tin oil-can, auger -hole, 
J pump-spout, pocket of an old coat, wheel-hub, or tomato-can, the 
interior is always brought to the same level of luxury in its copi- 
ous feather- bed. 
I remember once, in the days of my early ornithological fer- 
vor, discovering a wren’s nest in a shallow knot-hole of an old 
apple-tree. The bird scolded and sputtered at the entrance like 
‘a typical setting hen, and even suffered herself to be poked from 
' the hole; and if there be those who think that birds cannot swear, 
