took a taste occasionally; but this sapsucker never touched
it--the sweet of the tree sufficed for him. This woodpecker does not
breed or abound in my vicinity; only stray specimens are now and then
to be met with in the colder months. As spring approached, the one I
refer to took his departure.

[Illustration: WOOD FOR THE STUDY FIRE]

I must bring my account of my neighbor in the tree down to the latest
date; so after the lapse of a year I add the following notes. The last
day of February was bright and spring-like. I heard the first sparrow
sing that morning and the first screaming of the circling hawks, and
about seven o'clock the first drumming of my little friend. His first
notes were uncertain and at long intervals, but by and by he warmed up
and beat a lively tattoo. As the season advanced he ceased to lodge in
his old quarters. I would rap and find nobody at home. Was he out on a
lark, I said, the spring fever working in his blood? After a time his
drumming grew less frequent, and finally, in the middle of April,
ceased entirely. Had some accident befallen him, or had he wandered
away to fresh fields, following some siren of his species? Probably
the latter. Another bird that I had under observation also left his
winter-quarters in the spring. This, then, appears to be the usual
custom. The wrens and the nuthatches and chickadees succeed to these
abandoned cavities, and often have amusing disputes over them. The
nuthatches frequently pass the night in them, and the wrens and
chickadees nest in them. I have further observed that in excavating a
cavity for a nest the downy woodpecker makes the entrance smaller than
when he is excavating his winter-quarters. This is doubtless for the
greater safety of the young birds.

The next fall the downy excavated another limb in the old apple-tree,
but had not got his retreat quite finished when the large hairy
woodpecker appeared upon the scene. I heard his loud _click, click_,
early one frosty November morning. There was something impatient and
angry in the tone that arrested my attention. I saw the bird fly to
the tree where downy had been at work, and fall with great violence
upon the entrance to his cavity. The bark and the chips flew beneath
his vigorous blows, and, before I fairly woke up to what he was doing,
he had completely demolished the neat, round doorway of downy. He had
made a large, ragged opening, large enough for himself to enter. I
drove him away a