28 HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS. 
maneuvers and listening to the delightful pleasantries, 
feeling that man is not the only animal endowed with 
conversational powers. 
Not long since I spent half a forenoon watching the 
‘ interesting performance of one of these most royal of 
birds on the chapel by Scajaquada Creek. He was 
on the iron-covered chimney, and hammering away on 
the sheet iron. He would stop a minute and listen for 
a response, then call loudly in his clear, mellow voice, 
and hammer away again on his fine sounding board. 
He knew he had. “a good thing,” and he kept posses- 
sion of it most the forenoon. When I approached too 
near he would get bebind the chimney and “ wake up, 
wake up” to let me know he was not asleep. Some- 
times these “golden wings” will find an old tin pan in 
a pasture to hammer upon. 
We have few more useful, interesting and beautiful 
birds than these, which, although classed with the 
woodpeckers, have few of the characteristics of that 
family. They associate principally with the robins, 
and pass less time in the trees than on the ground, 
where they obtain most of their food, which to a large 
extent consists of ants and their eggs. Although nat- 
urally tame and confiding, they are very sagacious, and 
have learned to put themselves on the opposite side of 
the trunk or branches of the trees when menaced with 
the guns of sportsmen. The highholes are about a foot 
in length, with a plumage rich and brilliant. The back 
and upper sides of their wings are a dark umber trans- 
versely streaked with black. The under parts of the 
