Auk, XII, July, 1895, P 
January Occurrence of the ‘Sapsucker’ in Brookline, Mass. — On 
Feb. 6, 1895, one of the coldest days of the year, with the wind blowing at 
about forty miles an hour, I sighted a small Woodpecker on the lee side 
of an apple tree on my father’s place in Brookline, Mass. As he seemed 
a little too large for a Downy Woodpecker, I investigated and found 
him to be an immature male Sapsucker ( Sphyrapicus varius). He was 
clinging to the trunk of the ti-ee and seemed, upon my approach, to be 
quite sluggish. I even went so far as to attempt to catch him in my 
hand, when he suddenly proved that he was not sluggish at all, and flew 
up into the top of the tree to peck at a frozen apple. So I went back to 
the house and having procured my gun, gathered him in. He proved to 
be in fine, fat condition and not crippled in any way. I afterwards found 
that some nephews of mine had seen him several times on apple trees in 
the vicinity, but not knowing of the rarity of this occurrence in the 
month'of January, they said nothing to me about it. 
I had, on several occasions, during the early part of the winter, noted 
apparently fresh borings on a Larch tree (Barix europcea') on our place, 
and had heretofore been unable to account for them. I know of no other 
instance of this bird’s wintering in Massachusetts 1 except that Mr. 
William Brewster writes me he killed one in January some years ago. — 
F. H. Kennard, Brookline , Mass. 
