food; yet I am convinced each one has its
favorite spot, like the grouse, to which it resorts especially in the
morning. The sugar-maker in the maple woods may notice that this sound
proceeds from the same tree or trees about his camp with great
regularity. A woodpecker in my vicinity has drummed for two seasons on a
telegraph-pole, and he makes the wires and glass insulators ring.
Another drums on a thin board on the end of a long grape-arbor, and on
still mornings can be heard a long distance.

* * * * *

I watch these woodpeckers daily to see if I can solve the mystery as to
how they hop up and down the trunks and branches without falling away
from them when they let go their hold. They come down a limb or trunk
backward by a series of little hops, moving both feet together. If the
limb is at an angle to the tree and they are on the under side of it,
they do not fall away from it to get a new hold an inch or half-inch
farther down. They are held to it as steel to a magnet. Both tail and
head are involved in the feat. At the instant of making the hop the head
is thrown in and the tail thrown out, but the exact mechanics of it I
cannot penetrate. Philosophers do not yet know how a backward-falling
cat turns in the air, but turn she does. It may be that the woodpecker
never quite relaxes his hold, though to my eye he appears to do so.

THE DOWNY WOODPECKER

Downy came and dwelt with me,
Taught me hermit lore;
Drilled his cell in oaken tree
Near my cabin door.

Architect of his own home
In the forest dim,
Carving its inverted dome
In a dozy limb.

Carved it deep and shaped it true
With his little bill;
Took no thought about the view,
Whether dale or hill.

Shook the chips upon the ground,
Careless who might see.
Hark! his hatchet's muffled sound
Hewing in the tree.

Round his door as compass-mark,
True and smooth his wall;
Just a shadow on the bark
Points you to his hall.

Downy leads a hermit life
All the winter through;
Free his days from jar and strife,
And his cares are few.

Waking up the frozen woods,
Shaking down the snows;
Many trees of many moods
Echo to his blows.

When the storms of winter rage,
Be it night or day,
Then I know my little page
Sleeps the time away.

Downy's stores are in th