DOWN FERRY LANE. 



45 



self inside out to display his variegated plumage. An 

 answering "wicky, wicky" comes from across the 

 river. I used to think the flicker the handsomest bird 

 that flew when my brothers shot game on the mead- 

 ows. We called him " harri wicket ' ' in those days. 

 The flickers nest in some of the hollow stumps farther 

 up the Lane; but the only occupied house of theirs I 

 ever found was near the pond at Blossom Hill. I was 

 casually passing by a big tree one day when I heard 

 a soft bur-r-r-r. I looked about, but there was no 

 telegraph pole in sight, so it could not be the hum- 

 ming of the wires. There was no squirrel or other 

 animal overhead. It quite startled me when I found 

 that the murmur was coming from the inside of an 

 apparently sound tree. Could a Dryad be impris- 

 oned there ? I had to hunt to find the hole which was 

 as high as my head, and almost concealed by a fold 

 in the bark. I thrust my arm down far as it would 

 go, and the hungry younglings stretched their necks 

 and bit my fingers. I might not have been sure they 

 were infant flickers, had I not heard an anxious note 

 near by, and looked to see the mother bird clinging to 

 a neighboring tree-trunk, and making a gorgeous 

 splash of color with her white rump and gold-lined 

 wings and tail. The scarlet nape is absent in the 



