Cambridge, Mass. 
/y/c, 
ch/r: 
# 
The only birds that have visited our place with any 
iJui— 
regularity this winter and the only ones I have seen there at all thus ' 
far in the present month are Flickers. Once I noted four and on sever- 
al occasions three together but ordinarily there have been only one or 
two seen at any one time. Their visits have been made oftenest in the 
. 
morning about eight or nine o'clock. For a time they contented them- 
selves with feasting on the berries of our hackberry and Parkman apple 
trees. About two weeks ago they began working on the trunks of two 
large pear trees. After knocking off the loose scales of outer bark 
they pecked and pushed at the inner bark until the cambium layer was 
exposed in many places over spaces as large as the palm of one's hand. 
All this was done in a leisurely and desultory way as if the birds 
were merely amusing themselves which indeed I suspect was really the 
lease for they did not seem to be obtaining anything in the way of food. 
After they had done really serious damage to the trees ( one of which 
is a sound and valuable seckel pear tree the other one old nearly 
worthless tree) I protected the trunks from further injury by wrapping 
them in burlap. A few days after this I heard the sounds of inter- 
mittent tapping above my study in the Museum and every now and then a 
lump of mortar fell into the fireplace from above. I think this hap- 
