History of 
the 
joker* 
s 
N e ot 
I spent the greater part of July 6th and 7th and 
most of the afternoon of toe 9th matching 'this nest. During 
these three days I saw only the male parent and I am inclined 
to believe that the female must have been killed before my 
vigils began although once, ..when the male was calling in the 
trees near the nest he was answered by another old bird 
which was apparently in. the s me tree but which I did not see. 
The male Flicker was at first very much afraid of 
me and would not go to the nest while I was near it, but he 
gradually became accustomed to my presence aid when I con¬ 
cealed myself -partially by means of a small canoe tent he 
would visit the nest when I was sitting in the canoe almost 
directly beneath it. Thus I watched the operation of 
feeding the young from a‘distance of not over 15 feet . ‘It 
was performed'as follows* 
The parent bird, r turning after an absence of 
from eighteen or twenty to sixty minutes, would first alight 
in the upper part of the maple among the foliage. If 
everything wan quiet below he would quickly and silently 
descend and rr rch on the edge of the hole, sometimes 
alighting there but ofteier striking against the trunk lower 
down and running up. If, on the contrary, he sow or heard 
anything to arouse his suspicions, he would ap roach slowly 
with 
and/great caution, taking short flights or scrambling back¬ 
wards down one of the maple trunks, keeping behind it, 
occasionally peeping out or down at me, and frequently 
uttering a few notes of the usual laugh, giving then slowly 
