en
them. Indeed, there is open hostility. The male will not allow
the female even to look at the meat while he is feeding. She will
sidle around toward it, edging nearer and nearer, when he will
suddenly dart at her, and often pursue her till she leaves the
tree. Every hour in the day I see him trying to drive her from
the neighborhood. She stands in perpetual dread of him, and gives
way the instant he approaches. He is a tyrant and a bully. They
both pass the night in snug chambers which they have excavated in
the decayed branch of an old apple-tree, but not together.

But in the spring what a change will come over the male. He will
protest to the female that he was only in fun, that she took him
far too seriously, that he had always cherished a liking for her.
Last April I saw a male trying his blandishments upon a female in
this way. It may have been the same pair I am now observing. The
female was extremely shy and reluctant; evidently she was
skeptical of the sincerity of so sudden a change on the part of
the male. I saw him pursue her from tree to tree with the most
flattering attention. The flight of the woodpecker is at all
times undulating, but on such occasions this feature is so
enhanced and the whole action so affected and studied on the part
of the male that the scene becomes highly amusing. The female
flew down upon a low stump in the currant-patch and was very busy
about her own affairs; the male followed, alighted on something
several rods distant, and appeared to be equally busy about his
affairs. Presently the female made quite a long flight to a tree
by the roadside. I could not tell how the male knew she had flown
and what course she had taken, as he was hidden from her amid the
thick currant-bushes; but he did know, and soon followed after in
his curious exaggerated undulatory manner of flight. I have
little doubt that his suit was finally successful.

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 h