, 426 THE GOLDEN-WINGED WOODPECKER. 
given quite a different instinct. He has taught it to be a 
hunter, and has taught it also to know the habits of its 
game, and when, and where, and how to set its traps. How 
often do we see in winter and early spring, the Downy 
Woodpecker followed by a troop of Chickadees, visiting 
every tree in the garden, especially those that have been 
perforated by itself, searching every hole and crevice for 
insects and their eggs. It shows no disposition to quarrel 
with its company, but rather seems to take pleasure in 
directing their course through the forest and orchard by the 
notes of its shrill clarion voice. It admits the Nuthatch 
and Brown Creeper to its society, who join it with the 
full assurance of its friendship, and they roam with it in 
storm and in sunshine over a vast territory, destroying in 
their eourse millions of vermin in the embryo state. The 
insect-eating birds that visit us in the spring and stop a few 
months, retiring in autumn, are very beneficial to the horti- 
eulturist, but their services are not to be compared to those 
of the resident birds which feed upon insects in every stage 
of their life. 
The Downy Woodpecker perforates decayed trees, or their 
branches, for their nesting places. When they select a hori- 
zontal branch, as they often do, they make a cavity in the 
limb to the extent of from ten to fifteen inches, towards the 
trunk of the tree, having the entrance leading to it on the un- 
derside of the branch; in such cases their nests are difficult 
to find. When they select an upright branch, or the trunk 
of a tree, it is dug out to the depth of from eight to twelve 
inches, and in the bottom of the hole, on the chips left for 
the purpose, the female deposits four or six pure white eggs, 
which measure in ama six-eighths of an inch, and in breadth 
five-eighths of 
To show ean diligent and persevering birds they are, I 
will state a fact. A pair of Downy Woodpeckers selected 
a branch of a chestnut tree, which was broken off about 
four feet from the trunk of it,and about ten feet from the 

