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f 
History of 
Flicker 1 s 
tfest 
and from a hole in the neighboring bank, keeping under water 
the entire distance, at others showing themselves boldly 
and swimming across A up the river. They have shelled 
large numbers of mussels on the barrels which float the house. 
Concerning the yourig ' '! oodpeckers, I will summarise 
as follows: - 
Late in Hay I noticed for the first time a Flicker's 
hole — then apparently nearly completed — in a very rotten 
stump covered externally with gray lichens and a species of 
woody fungus and forming one of seven upright, diverging 
stems, the remaining six still living, and all evidently 
sprouts from the same roots; this tree being an ancient 
white maple which stands on the edge of the river within a 
few y ids of ay boat-house. The trunk of a tall elm rises 
through and spreads its top above the maple* -vJhen X first 
saw the Flicker's hole, there were two other inhabited nests 
in the old stump, a Downy oodpecker's near the top and, a 
little lower down, an old hole of the same species then 
occupied by a p ir of Bluebirds. The Flicker’s nest was 
still lower down — about ten feet above the ground. 
The Bluebirds first, and shortly afterwards the 
V 
Downy ioodpeokers, reared and took away their young after 
which a pgi.tr of House Sparrows entered Into possession of 
the hold which the Downiee had just vacated. Scarcely had 
thefenale Sparrow laid her eggs hen a boy, attempting to 
climb the stump, broke it off squarely at the entrance 
hole of the .Flicker's nest. For two weeks or more previous 
