38 AT THE NORTH OF BEARCAMP WATER . 
their strange song on the edge of the water. 
Perhaps they come there to bathe; at all events 
they sing only for a moment, after which only 
an occasional cluck or “ whip ” betrays their 
presence. Late in August the night-hawks fly 
in large companies, and as many as twenty-five 
have sometimes wheeled into the lake’s basin 
and circled over it, to the consternation of the 
small frogs. 
Behind the great oaks, in which scarlet tana- 
gers breed, there is a level overgrown with gray 
birches. Nearly a dozen of these trees have 
been converted into drinking fountains by a 
family of sap-sucking woodpeckers, and through 
the summer days, as long as the sap is sweet and 
abundant, the indolent birds cling to the trunk, 
sip the tree’s lifeblood as it drains away, and 
catch a few of the many insects which hover 
around the moist bark. The product of the 
trees is shared with several humming-birds, and 
the insects attract small flycatchers and war¬ 
blers. 
To tell of all the birds which either live near 
the lake or come to it more or less regularly, 
would be to recount the doings of most of the 
six-score species which are found in the Choco- 
rua country. The lake is not only a favorite 
place of resort for resident birds, but it is a 
section of one of those dimly recognizable 
