124 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 
feet in length was brought to the nest-site, and passed five times round 
the larger, and twice about the smaller of the two twigs, with overlaps 
due to working each string-end independently. Having thus fixed it 
firmly at the middle, the intelligent course would have been to have 
incorporated the loose ends with the nest. Instead, they were both left 
flying free, so that this labor, however begun, was not intelligently 
finished. The eighteen inches of free string really served to render the 
nest conspicuous. 
Woodpecker Drilling for Insects——While in the Maine woods on 
August 13, my attention was drawn to the freshly drilled hole of a 

Fic. 23. Dousip “ Loop-KNOT” MADE BY ROBIN ABOUT PINE-BRANCH CLOSE TO 
irs Nest, illustrating an act probably instinctively begun, but not intelligently finished, 
since the ends of the twine were not incorporated with the structure, but left hang- 
ing free. 
woodpecker (Fig. 24), in a pine tree, which was two feet in diameter 
at the base, and apparently sound. This hole, which was remarkable 
for its size, had been cut at a point seven feet up, through nearly five 
inches of solid sap wood, to the heart of the tree, and was 92 inches 
long, 54 inches wide, and 8 inches deep. These dimensions would 
imply the removal of over three hundred cubic inches of wood, and the 
chips, some of which were four inches long (Fig. 25), were plainly the 
work of our largest northern species, the pileated woodpecker or log 
cock. 
A moment’s inspection showed that this woodpecker had tunneled 
