7/r/fv 
3 
BrJ|; 
ii of 
ms. 
Flickers 
Up to within a few days (it succeeded last on the 
3rd) it was easy enough to start all these young clamoring 
for food by rattling or scratching the back or the outside 
of the stump but either they have learned to detect the 
imposition or they have become more shy and silent (the 
latter, I think,is the real explanation) for both yesterday 
and to-day I tried in vain to elicit any sound from them. To-day 
I was working on my canoe under the tree for nearly two hours, 
making scarcely any noise, however. During this time I 
did not hear a sound from the young Wood-peckers save once 
when their parent came into the tree an^., seeing me probably, 
called anxiously a number of times, using the long laugh 
but giving it in soft, low tones. To this the young responded 
with a subdued chatter. The parent bird did not go to the 
nest and soon flew off. 
The young have not as yet climbed to the top of 
the cavity. They sit or rather squat in the bottom, tails 
in, breasts against the walls, filling the space with a mass 
of mottled black, brown and drab plumage, above which, 
upward 
pointing 4ewawaa?4, rise the five long bills each tipped with 
white as already described. Their glistening dark eyes are 
also conspicuous and they wink frequently. I took out 
one to-day when it struggled violently and set up a loud, 
shrill screaming . The nest now has a rank, foul smell but 
the plumage of the young is clean and perfectly free from 
vermin. Each young bird still has the ivory white mask on 
7 
