DOWNY WOODPECKER 195 



little Baker Farm peach orchard, heard an incessant 

 shrill musical twitter or peeping, as from young birds, 

 over my head, and, looking up, saw a hole in an upright 

 dead bough, some fifteen feet from ground. Climbed 

 up and, finding that the shrill twitter came from it, 

 guessed it to be the nest of a downy woodpecker, which 

 proved to be the case, — for it reminded me of the hiss- 

 ing squeak or squeaking hiss of young pigeon wood- 

 peckers, but this was more musical or bird-like. The 

 bough was about four and a half inches in diameter, 

 and the hole perfectly circular, about an inch and a 

 quarter in diameter. Apparently nests had been in 

 holes above, now broken out, higher up. When I put 

 my fingers in it, the young breathed their shrill twitter 

 louder than ever. Anon the old appeared, and came 

 quite near, while I stood in the tree, keeping up an in- 

 cessant loud and shrill scolding note, and also after I 

 descended ; not to be relieved. 



July 19, 1856. The downy woodpecker's nest which 

 I got July 8th was in a dead and partly rotten upright 

 apple bough four and three quarters inches in diam- 

 eter. Hole perfectly elliptical (or oval) one and two 

 sixteenths by one and five sixteenths inches ; whole 

 depth below it eight inches. It is excavated directly in- 

 ward about three and a half inches, with a conical roof, 

 also arching at back, with a recess in one side on level 

 with the hole, where the bird turns. Judging from an 

 old hole in the same bough, directly above, it enlarges 

 directly to a diameter of two and one fourth to two and 

 one half inches, not in this case descending exactly in 

 the middle of the bough, but leaving one side not a 



