62 
BY THE WAYSIDE 
eight or ten years. Every time we 
would pass the place on our way back 
and forth from the farm we would al¬ 
ways look for our friend the wood- 
pecker, and it was seldom that he was 
not in sight. I know of another family of 
woodpeckers that lived in a stump down 
at my Aunt Julia’s. The stump was 
cut down last spring and you ought to 
have seen the disappointment of those 
woodpeckers when they came there and 
found that their favorite home had been 
taken away. They stayed around the 
place for nearly a day. And you could 
hear them chirping and screaming as if 
they felt that they could not bear to 
leave that place where they had made 
their home for so many years. One day 
while driving to the farm I noticed a 
young red-headed woodpecker flying 
rapidly towards us. It was in a direct 
line with the telephone wire and a mo¬ 
ment later it struck the wire and flut¬ 
tered feebly to the ground. I jumped 
out of the rig and picked it up- It 
screamed and pecked at my hands and 
I gave it a toss into the air and it flew 
off'. 
A kingfisher is a funny bird. One 
day while out fishing I caught one of 
the smallest trout I ever saw. I threw 
it back into the stream and turned 
around to rebait my hook. When to 
my surprise I-heard a loud splash be¬ 
hind me and glancing around I per¬ 
ceived a kingfisher rise from the water 
with, I believe, the same fish that I had 
thrown back into the water a few mo¬ 
ments before. 
Kingfisher makes me think of king¬ 
bird and kingbird makes me think of 
crows. The kingbird hardly ever sights 
a crow but what it chases after it. I 
saw a kingbird chase a crow until it 
tired him so that be had to drop and 
the kingbird just more than gave it to 
him. He pulled the feathers out in 
bunches. 
Another time I witnessed a fight be¬ 
tween a crow and a hawk. I thought 
that the hawk would get the better of 
the crow because I always regarded the 
crow as a lazy fellow. 
But to my surprise the crow was 
quicker than the hawk and it made its 
thrusts like lightning. My, how the 
feathers did fly! They looked like a lot 
of snowflakes. At last the hawk had 
to retreat and the crow flew off, evi¬ 
dently much satisfied with the outcome 
of the battle. 
I have seen an eagle once. And then 
it was high in the sky. But you could 
see quite a good-sized fish in his curved 
bill. He went over us like a streak of 
lightning, you might say. There was 
a whir of the wings and he w r as gone. 
A sea gull is a pretty bird and they 
have very powerful wings. Many 
times have I watched them while down 
at the beach. 
I have quite a bit more to tell you 
but I think that I will leave that for 
my next letter. I fear I have gotten , 
this letter too long already. 
My name is Harold Sherman, age 12',. 
and address is— 
426 State St., 
Traverse City, Mich. 
Continued from Page 51). 
timber exclusively; and do you know 
what it uses for a house ? It is the- 
spruce and balsam with their broad base- 
end rich evergreen boughs ladened with 
snow in winter, the branches droop and 
form a cavity at the stump and during- 
