WINTER NEIGHBORS 



stubs to which they resort for that purpose. 

 Their need of expression is apparently just 

 as great as that of the song-birds, and it is 

 not surprising that they should have found 

 out that there is music in a dry, seasoned 

 limb which can be evoked beneath their 

 beaks. 



A few seasons ago, a downy woodpecker, 

 probably the individual one who is now my 

 winter neighbor, began to drum early in 

 March in a partly decayed apple-tree that 

 stands in the edge of a narrow strip of 

 woodland near me. When the morning 

 was still and mild I would often hear him 

 through my window before I was up, or by 

 half -past six o'clock, and he would keep it 

 up pretty briskly till nine or ten o'clock, in 

 this respect resembling the grouse, which 

 do most of their drumming in the forenoon. 

 His drum was the stub of a dry limb about 

 the size of one's wrist. The heart was de- 

 cayed and gone, but the outer shell was 

 hard and resonant. The bird would keep 

 his position there for an hour at a time. 

 Between his drummings he would preen 

 his plumage and listen as if for the response 

 of the female, or for the drum of some 

 rival. How swift his head would go when 

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