1892
July 7
(No 7)
Concord, Massachusetts.
Mass
Concord.  The male Flicker was at first very much afraid
of me and would not go to the nest while I was near
it but he gradually became accustomed to my presence
and when I concealed myself partially by means of a
small canoe tent he would visit the nest when I
was sitting in the canoe almost directly beneath it.
Thus I watched the operation of feeding the young
from a distance of not over 15 feet. It was performed
as follows:

The parent bird returning after an absence from
eighteen or twenty to sixty minutes would first
alight in the upper part of the maple among the
foliage. If everything was quiet below he would quickly
and silently descend and puck on the edge of the hole sometimes
alighting there but often striking against the trunk
low down and running up. If, on the contrary, he saw or heard
anything to arouse his suspicions he would
approach [delete]?[/delete] slowly and with great caution
taking short flights or scrambling backwards down [delete]the[/delete]
one [delete]back side[delete] of the maple trunks keeping behind it,
occasionally peeping out or down at me and frequently uttering a few
notes of the normal laugh, giving them slowly and
somewhat disconnectedly in a peculiarly soft, musical
tone. He also uttered a cry which I do not remember
to have heard before, a low, anxious woi or wò-à,
a note of inquiry seemingly for it was invariably and
instantly answered by a burst of clamor from the young.
Occasionally this woi cry would be given several times
in succession and would then rise directly with the laughing call.
At the first rattle of their parent's claws on the outer
surface of the stump the young would appear at