quest of building material.
That most freely used is a sort of cotton-bearing plant which grows
in old wornout fields. The nest is large for the size of the bird,
and very soft. It is in every respect a first-class domicile.

On another occasion, while walking or rather sauntering in the woods
(for I have discovered that one cannot run and read the book of
nature), my attention was arrested by a dull hammering, evidently
but a few rods off. I said to myself, "Some one is building a
house." From what I had previously seen, I suspected the builder to
be a red-headed woodpecker in the top of a dead oak stub near by.
Moving cautiously in that direction, I perceived a round hole, about
the size of that made by an inch-and-a-half auger, near the top of
the decayed trunk, and the white chips of the workman strewing the
ground beneath. When but a few paces from the tree, my foot pressed
upon a dry twig, which gave forth a very slight snap. Instantly the
hammering ceased, and a scarlet head appeared at the door. Though I
remained perfectly motionless, forbearing even to wink till my eyes
smarted, the bird refused to go on with his work, but flew quietly
off to a neighboring tree. What surprised me was, that, amid his
busy occupation down in the heart of the old tree, he should have
been so alert and watchful as to catch the slightest sound from
without.

The woodpeckers all build in about the same manner, excavating the
trunk or branch of a decayed tree and depositing the eggs on the
fine fragments of wood at the bottom of the cavity. Though the nest
is not especially an artistic work,--requiring strength rather than
skill,--yet the eggs and the young of few other birds are so
completely housed from the elements, or protected from their natural
enemies, the jays, crows, hawks, and owls. A tree with a natural
cavity is never selected, but one which has been dead just long
enough to have become soft and brittle throughout. The bird goes in
horizontally for a few inches, making a hole perfectly round and
smooth and adapted to his size, then turns downward, gradually
enlarging the hole, as he proceeds, to the depth of ten, fifteen,
twenty inches, according to the softness of the tree and the urgency
of the mother bird to deposit her eggs. While excavating, male and
female work alternately. After one has been engaged fifteen or
twenty minutes, drilling and carrying out chips, it ascends to an
upper limb, utters a loud call or two