64 
BULLETIN OF THE NUTTALL 
my, man, the eggs and young of this family' enjoy a more complete 
immunity from danger than those of any other. The cunning crow 
and noisy jay, both ever on the alert for a frolic after bird’s eggs, 
are here balked ; while rain cannot enter, and the mink, weazel, and 
other noxious animals find their keen noses of little avail. Snakes 
may, and doubtless do sometimes enter the holes of the larger species, 
but even they probably bestow more of their attentions on ground 
and bush building birds. All the endless little artistic contrivances 
for concealment so artfully employed by other birds in the construc- 
tion of their nests are here needless, and consequently ignored. In 
view of the manifest advantages attendant upon this mode of nidifi- 
cation, it is a matter of no little surprise that Woodpeckers are not 
more numerous, especially when it is taken into consideration that 
the habit of roosting in holes at all seasons of the year must protect 
the adults, as well as young, from many nocturnal dangers. Lack 
of suitable opportunities for nesting, or obtaining food, may doubtless 
be taken as explanatory of the comparative fewness of these birds in 
the older settled sections. In fact, the wilderness is the true home 
of the Woodpeckers, and in all primitive forest regions they abound. 
There Nature reigns supreme, and in defiance of artificial laws and 
cultivated ideas of sylvan beauty, allows her woods to fill with the 
decaying forms of her dead subjects, — huge moss-clad trunks, pic- 
turesque in shape, and by their grim, gaunt aspect adding wildness 
to an already picturesque scene. In such congenial haunts these 
birds find all their wants supplied, food being plenty and easily ob- 
tained, and the selection of a nesting site a matter of no difficulty. 
Taking the seven commoner New England species, four — Hylotomus 
pileatus, Sphyrapicus varms^ and the two species of Picoides — will 
be found almost exclusively in the forest ; while of the remaining 
three, the two species of Picus are decidedly more partial to the 
woods than the cultivated districts. Colaptes alone seems to have 
no preferences, and is no more abundant in the Northern forests 
than on treeless Nantucket, in which latter place it makes the best 
of circumstances and drills its holes in gate-posts and ice-houses. 
Throughout the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and in 
most sections of Northern Maine, the Yellow-bellied Woodpeckers 
outnumber all the other species in the summer season. They ar- 
rive from the South, where they spend the winter, from the middle 
to the last of April, and, pairing being soon effected, commence at 
once the excavation of their nests. The trees usually selected are 
