200 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



inches deep, young pigeon woodpeckers, large and well 

 feathered. They utter their squeaking hiss whenever I 

 cover the hole with my hand, apparently taking it for 

 the approach of the mother. A strong, rank fetid smell 

 issues from the hole. 



March 17, 1858. Ah ! there is the note of the first 

 flicker, a prolonged, monotonous wick-wick-wick-wick- 

 wick-wick, etc., or, if you please, quick-quick, heard far 

 over and through the dry leaves. But how that single 

 sound peoples and enriches all the woods and fields ! 

 They are no longer the same woods and fields that 

 they were. This note really quickens what was dead. It 

 seems to put a life into withered grass and leaves and 

 bare twigs, and henceforth the days shall no,t be as they 

 have been. It is as when a family, your neighbors, re- 

 turn to an empty house after a long absence, and you 

 hear the cheerful hum of voices and the laughter of 

 children, and see the smoke from the kitchen fire. The 

 doors are thrown open, and children go screaming 

 through the hall. So the flicker dashes through the 

 aisles of the grove, throws up a window here and 

 cackles out it, and then there, airing the hous^e. It 

 makes its voice ring up-stairs and down-stairs, and so, 

 as it were, fits it for its habitation and ours, and takes 

 possession. It is as good as a housewarming to all na- 

 ture. Now I hear and see him louder and nearer on the 

 top of the long-armed white oak, sitting very upright, 

 as is their wont, as it were calling for some of his kind 

 that may also have arrived. 



April 15, 1858. See a pair of woodpeckers on a 

 rail and on the ground a-courting. One keeps hopping 



