The country is more of a wilderness, more of a wild solitude, in the
winter than in the summer. The wild comes out. The urban, the
cultivated, is hidden or negatived. You shall hardly know a good field
from a poor, a meadow from a pasture, a park from a forest. Lines and
boundaries are disregarded; gates and bar-ways are unclosed; man lets
go his hold upon the earth; title-deeds are deep buried beneath the
snow; the best-kept grounds relapse to a state of nature; under the
pressure of the cold, all the wild creatures become outlaws, and roam
abroad beyond their usual haunts. The partridge comes to the orchard
for buds; the rabbit comes to the garden and lawn; the crows and jays
come to the ash-heap and corn-crib, the snow buntings to the stack and
to the barnyard; the sparrows pilfer from the domestic fowls; the pine
grosbeak comes down from the north and shears your maples of their
buds; the fox prowls about your premises at night; and the red
squirrels find your grain in the barn or steal the butternuts from
your attic. In fact, winter, like some great calamity, changes the
status of most creatures and sets them adrift. Winter, like poverty,
makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows.
[Illustration: OUT FOR A WALK]
For my part, my nearest approach to a strange bedfellow is the little
gray rabbit that has taken up her abode under my study floor. As she
spends the day here and is out larking at night, she is not much of a
bedfellow, after all. It is probable that I disturb her slumbers more
than she does mine. I think she is some support to me under there,--a
silent, wide-eyed witness and backer; a type of the gentle and
harmless in savage nature. She has no sagacity to give me or lend me,
but that soft, nimble foot of hers, and that touch as of cotton
wherever she goes, are worthy of emulation. I think I can feel her
goodwill through the floor, and I hope she can mine. When I have a
happy thought, I imagine her ears twitch, especially when I think of
the sweet apple I will place by her doorway at night. I wonder if that
fox chanced to catch a glimpse of her the other night when he
stealthily leaped over the fence near by and walked along between the
study and the house? How clearly one could read that it was not a
little dog that had passed there! There was something furtive in the
track; it shied off away from the house and around it, as if eying it
suspiciously; and then it had the caution and deliberation of the
fox,--bold, bold, but not too bold; wariness was in every footprint.
If it had been a little dog that had chanced to wander that way, when
he crossed my path he would have followed it up to the barn and have
gone smelling around for a bone; but this sharp, cautious track held
straight across all others, keeping five or six rods from the house,
up the hill, across the highway toward a neighboring farmstead, with
its nose in the air, and its eye and ear alert, so to speak.
A winter neighbor of mine, in whom I am interested, and who perhaps
lends me his support after his kind, is a little red owl, whose
retreat is in the heart of an old apple-tree just over the fence.
Where he keeps himself in spring and summer, I do not know, but late
every fall, and at intervals all winter, his hiding-place is
discovered by the jays and nuthatches, and proclaimed from the
treetops for the space of half an hour or so, with all the powers of
voice they can command. Four times during one winter they called me
out to behold this little ogre feigning sleep in his den, sometimes in
one apple-tree, sometimes in another. Whenever I heard their cries, I
knew my neighbor was being berated. The birds would take turns at
looking in upon him, and uttering their alarm-notes. Every jay within
hearing would come to the spot, and at once approach the hole in the
trunk or limb, and with a kind of breathless eagerness and excitement
take a peep at the owl, and then join the outcry. When I approached
they would hastily take a final look, and then withdraw and regard my
movements intently. After accustoming my eye to the faint light of the
cavity for a few moments, I could usually make out the owl at the
bottom feigning sleep. Feigning, I say, because this is what he really
did, as I first discovered one day when I cut into his retreat with
the axe. The loud blows and the falling chips did not disturb him at
all. When I reached in a stick and pulled him over on his side,
leaving one of his wings spread out, he made no attempt to recover
himself, but lay among the chips and fragments of decayed wood, like a
part of themselves. Indeed, it took a sharp eye to distinguish him.
Not till I had pulled him forth by one wing, rather rudely, did he
abandon his trick of simulated sleep or death. Then, like a detected
pickpocket, he was suddenly transformed into another creature. His
eyes flew wide open, his talons clutched my finger, his ears were
depressed, and every motion and look said, "Hands off, at your peril."
Finding this game did not work, he soon began to "play 'possum" again.
I put a cover over my study wood-box and kept him captive for a week.
Look in upon him at any time, night or day, and he was apparently
wrapped in the profoundest slumber; but the live mice which I put into
his box from time to time found his sleep was easily broken; there
would be a sudden rustle in the box, a faint squeak, and then silence.
After a week of captivity I gave him his freedom in the full sunshine:
no trouble for him to see which way and where to go.
Just at dusk in the winter nights, I often hear his soft _bur-r-r-r_,
very pleasing and bell-like. What a furtive, woody sound it is in the
winter stillness, so unlike the harsh scream of the hawk! But all the
ways of the owl are ways of softness and duskiness. His wings are shod
with silence, his plumage is edged with down.
[Illustration: THE OLD APPLE-TREE]
Another owl neighbor of mine, with whom I pass the time of day more
frequently than with the last, lives farther away. I pass his castle
every night on my way to the post-office, and in winter, if the hour
is late enough, am pretty sure to see him standing in his doorway,
surveying the passers-by and the landscape through narrow slits in his
eyes. For four successive winters now have I observed him. As the
twilight begins to deepen, he rises up out of his cavity in the
apple-tree, scarcely faster than the moon rises from behind the hill,
and sits in the opening, completely framed by its outlines of gray
bark and dead wood, and by his protective coloring virtually invisible
to every eye that does not know he is there. Probably my own is the
only eye that has ever penetrated his secret, and mine never would
have done so had I not chanced on one occasion to see him leave his
retreat and make a raid upon a shrike that was impaling a shrew-mouse
upon a thorn in a neighboring tree, and which I was watching. Failing
to get the mouse, the owl returned swiftly to his cavity, and ever
since, while going that way, I have been on the lookout for him.
Dozens of teams and foot-passengers pass him late in the day, but he
regards them not, nor they him. When I come along and pause to salute
him, he opens his eyes a little wider, and, appearing to recognize me,
quickly shrinks and fades into the background of his door in a very
weird and curious manner. When he is not at his outlook, or when he
is, it requires the best powers of the eye to decide the point, as the
empty cavity itself is almost an exact image of him. If the whole
thing had been carefully studied, it could not have answered its
purpose better. The owl stands quite perpendicular, presenting a front
of light mottled gray; the eyes are closed to a mere slit, the
ear-feathers depressed, the beak buried in the plumage, and the whole
attitude is one of silent, motionless waiting and observation. If a
mouse should be seen crossing the highway, or scudding over any
exposed part of the snowy surface in the twilight, the owl would
doubtless swoop down upon it. I think the owl has learned to
distinguish me from the rest of the passers-by; at least, when I stop
before him, and he sees himself observed, he backs down into his den,
as I have said, in a very amusing manner. Whether bluebirds,
nuthatches, and chickadees--birds that pass the night in cavities of
trees--ever run into the clutches of the dozing owl, I should be glad
to know. My impression is, however, that they seek out smaller
cavities. An old willow by the roadside blew down one summer, and a
decayed branch broke open, revealing a brood of half-fledged owls, and
many feathers and quills of bluebirds, orioles, and other songsters,
showing plainly enough why all birds fear and berate the owl.
The English house sparrows, which are so rapidly increasing among us,
and which must add greatly to the food supply of the owls and other
birds of prey, seek to baffle their enemies by roosting in the densest
evergreens they can find, in the arbor-vitæ, and in hemlock hedges.
Soft-winged as the owl is, he cannot steal in upon such a retreat
without giving them warning.
These sparrows are becoming about the most noticeable of my winter
neighbors, and a troop of them every morning watch me put out the
hens' feed, and soon claim their share. I rather encouraged them in
their neighborliness, till one day I discovered the snow under a
favorite plum-tree where they most frequently perched covered with the
scales of the fruit-buds. On investigating, I found that the tree had
been nearly stripped of its buds,--a very unneighborly act on the part
of the sparrows, considering, too, all the cracked corn I had
scattered for them. So I at once served notice on them that our good
understanding was at an end. And a hint is as good as a kick with this
bird. The stone I hurled among them, and the one with which I followed
them up, may have been taken as a kick; but they were only a hint of
the shot-gun that stood ready in the corner. The sparrows left in high
dudgeon, and were not back again in some days, and were then very shy.
No doubt the time is near at hand when we shall have to wage serious
war upon these sparrows, as they long have had to do on the continent
of Europe. And yet it will be hard to kill the little wretches, the
only Old World bird we have. When I take down my gun to shoot them I
shall probably remember that the Psalmist said, "I watch, and am as a
sparrow alone upon the housetop," and maybe the recollection will
cause me to stay my hand. The sparrows have the Old World hardiness
and prolificness; they are wise and tenacious of life, and we shall
find it by and by no small matter to keep them in check. Our native
birds are much different, less prolific, less shrewd, less aggressive
and persistent, less quick-witted and able to read the note of danger
or hostility,--in short, less sophisticated. Most of our birds are yet
essentially wild, that is, little changed by civilization. In winter,
especially, they sweep by me and around me in flocks,--the Canada
sparrow, the snow bunting, the shore lark, the pine grosbeak, the
redpoll, the cedar-bird,--feeding upon frozen apples in the orchard,
upon cedar-berries, upon maple-buds, and the berries of the
mountain-ash, and the celtis, and upon the seeds of the weeds that
rise above the snow in the field, or upon the hayseed dropped where
the cattle have been foddered in the barnyard or about the distant
stack; but yet taking no heed of man, in no way changing their habits
so as to take advantage of his presence in nature. The pine grosbeaks
will come in numbers upon your porch to get the black drupes of the
honeysuckle or the woodbine, or within reach of your windows to get
the berries of the mountain-ash, but they know you not; they look at
you as innocently and unconcernedly as at a bear or moose in their
native north, and your house is no more to them than a ledge of rocks.
The only ones of my winter neighbors that actually rap at my door are
the nuthatches and woodpeckers, and these do not know that it is my
door. My retreat is covered with the bark of young chestnut-trees, and
the birds, I suspect, mistake it for a huge stump that ought to hold
fat grubs (there is not even a book-worm inside of it), and their loud
rapping often makes me think I have a caller indeed. I place fragments
of hickory-nuts in the interstices of the bark, and thus attract the
nuthatches; a bone upon my window-sill attracts both nuthatches and
the downy woodpecker. They peep in curiously through the window upon
me, pecking away at my bone, too often a very poor one. A bone nailed
to a tree a few feet in front of the window attracts crows as well as
lesser birds. Even the slate-colored snowbird, a seed-eater, comes and
nibbles it occasionally.
The bird that seems to consider he has the best right to the bone both
upon the tree and upon the sill is the downy woodpecker, my favorite
neighbor among the winter birds, to whom I will mainly devote the
remainder of this chapter. His retreat is but a few paces from my own,
in the decayed limb of an apple-tree which he excavated several
autumns ago. I say "he" because the red plume on the top of his head
proclaims the sex. It seems not to be generally known to our writers
upon ornithology that certain of our woodpeckers--probably all the
winter residents--each fall excavate a limb or the trunk of a tree in
which to pass the winter, and that the cavity is abandoned in the
spring, probably for a new one in which nidification takes place. So
far as I have observed, these cavities are drilled out only by the
males. Where the females take up their quarters I am not so well
informed, though I suspect that they use the abandoned holes of the
males of the previous year.
The particular woodpecker to which I refer drilled his first hole in
my apple-tree one fall four or five years ago. This he occupied till
the following spring, when he abandoned it. The next fall he began a
hole in an adjoining limb, later than before, and when it was about
half completed a female took possession of his old quarters. I am
sorry to say that this seemed to enrage the male very much, and he
persecuted the poor bird whenever she appeared upon the scene. He
would fly at her spitefully and drive her off. One chilly November
morning, as I passed under the tree, I heard the hammer of the little
architect in his cavity, and at the same time saw the persecuted
female sitting at the entrance of the other hole as if she would fain
come out. She was actually shivering, probably from both fear and
cold. I understood the situation at a glance; the bird was afraid to
come forth and brave the anger of the male. Not till I had rapped
smartly upon the limb with my stick did she come out and attempt to
escape; but she had not gone ten feet from the tree before the male
was in hot pursuit, and in a few moments had driven her back to the
same tree, where she tried to avoid him among the branches. A few
days after, he rid himself of his unwelcome neighbor in the following
ingenious manner: he fairly scuttled the other cavity; he drilled a
hole into the bottom of it that let in the light and the cold, and I
saw the female there no more. I did not see him in the act of
rendering this tenement uninhabitable; but one morning, behold it was
punctured at the bottom, and the circumstances all seemed to point to
him as the author of it. There is probably no gallantry among the
birds except at the mating season. I have frequently seen the male
woodpecker drive the female away from the bone upon the tree. When she
hopped around to the other end and timidly nibbled it, he would
presently dart spitefully at her. She would then take up her position
in his rear and wait till he had finished his meal. The position of
the female among the birds is very much the same as that of woman
among savage tribes. Most of the drudgery of life falls upon her, and
the leavings of the males are often her lot.
[Illustration: WINTER AT RIVERBY ON THE HUDSON]
My bird is a genuine little savage, doubtless, but I value him as a
neighbor. It is a satisfaction during the cold or stormy winter nights
to know he is warm and cosy there in his retreat. When the day is bad
and unfit to be abroad in, he is there too. When I wish to know if he
is at home, I go and rap upon his tree, and, if he is not too lazy or
indifferent, after some delay he shows his head in his round doorway
about ten feet above, and looks down inquiringly upon me,--sometimes
latterly I think half resentfully, as much as to say, "I would thank
you not to disturb me so often." After sundown, he will not put his
head out any more when I call, but as I step away I can get a glimpse
of him inside looking cold and reserved. He is a late riser,
especially if it is a cold or disagreeable morning, in this respect
being like the barn fowls; it is sometimes near nine o'clock before I
see him leave his tree. On the other hand, he comes home early, being
in, if the day is unpleasant, by four P. M. He lives all alone; in
this respect I do not commend his example. Where his mate is, I should
like to know.
I have discovered several other woodpeckers in adjoining orchards,
each of which has a like home, and leads a like solitary life. One of
them has excavated a dry limb within easy reach of my hand, doing the
work also in September. But the choice of tree was not a good one; the
limb was too much decayed, and the workman had made the cavity too
large; a chip had come out, making a hole in the outer wall. Then he
went a few inches down the limb and began again, and excavated a
large, commodious chamber, but had again come too near the surface;
scarcely more than the bark protected him in one place, and the limb
was very much weakened. Then he made another attempt still farther
down the limb, and drilled in an inch or two, but seemed to change his
mind; the work stopped, and I concluded the bird had wisely abandoned
the tree. Passing there one cold, rainy November day, I thrust in my
two fingers and was surprised to feel something soft and warm; as I
drew away my hand the bird came out, apparently no more surprised than
I was. It had decided, then, to make its home in the old limb; a
decision it had occasion to regret, for not long after, on a stormy
night, the branch gave way and fell to the ground:--
"When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,
And down will come baby, cradle and all."
Such a cavity makes a snug, warm home, and when the entrance is on the
under side of the limb, as is usual, the wind and snow cannot reach
the occupant. Late in December, while crossing a high, wooded
mountain, lured by the music of fox-hounds, I discovered fresh yellow
chips strewing the new-fallen snow, and at once thought of my
woodpeckers. On looking around I saw where one had been at work
excavating a lodge in a small yellow birch. The orifice was about
fifteen feet from the ground, and appeared as round as if struck with
a compass. It was on the east side of the tree, so as to avoid the
prevailing west and northwest winds. As it was nearly two inches in
diameter, it could not have been the work of the downy, but must have
been that of the hairy, or else the yellow-bellied woodpecker. His
home had probably been wrecked by some violent wind, and he was thus
providing himself another. In digging out these retreats the
woodpeckers prefer a dry, brittle trunk, not too soft. They go in
horizontally to the centre and then turn downward, enlarging the
tunnel as they go, till when finished it is the shape of a long, deep
pear.
Another trait our woodpeckers have that endears them to me, and that
has never been pointedly noticed by our ornithologists, is their habit
of drumming in the spring. They are songless birds, and yet all are
musicians; they make the dry limbs eloquent of the coming change. Did
you think that loud, sonorous hammering which proceeded from the
orchard or from the near woods on that still March or April morning
was only some bird getting its breakfast? It is downy, but he is not
rapping at the door of a grub; he is rapping at the door of spring,
and the dry limb thrills beneath the ardor of his blows. Or, later in
the season, in the dense forest or by some remote mountain lake, does
that measured rhythmic beat that breaks upon the silence, first three
strokes following each other rapidly, succeeded by two louder ones
with longer intervals between them, and that has an effect upon the
alert ear as if the solitude itself had at last found a voice,--does
that suggest anything less than a deliberate musical performance? In
fact, our woodpeckers are just as characteristically drummers as is
the ruffed grouse, and they have their particular limbs and stubs to
which they resort for that purpose. Their need of expression is
apparently just as great as that of the song-birds, and it is not
surprising that they should have found out that there is music in a
dry, seasoned limb which can be evoked beneath their beaks.
A few seasons ago, a downy woodpecker, probably the individual one who
is now my winter neighbor, began to drum early in March in a partly
decayed apple-tree that stands in the edge of a narrow strip of
woodland near me. When the morning was still and mild I would often
hear him through my window before I was up, or by half-past six
o'clock, and he would keep it up pretty briskly till nine or ten
o'clock, in this respect resembling the grouse, which do most of their
drumming in the forenoon. His drum was the stub of a dry limb about
the size of one's wrist. The heart was decayed and gone, but the outer
shell was hard and resonant. The bird would keep his position there
for an hour at a time. Between his drummings he would preen his
plumage and listen as if for the response of the female, or for the
drum of some rival. How swift his head would go when he was
delivering his blows upon the limb! His beak wore the surface
perceptibly. When he wished to change the key, which was quite often,
he would shift his position an inch or two to a knot which gave out a
higher, shriller note. When I climbed up to examine his drum he was
much disturbed. I did not know he was in the vicinity, but it seems he
saw me from a near tree, and came in haste to the neighboring
branches, and with spread plumage and a sharp note demanded plainly
enough what my business was with his drum. I was invading his privacy,
desecrating his shrine, and the bird was much put out. After some
weeks the female appeared; he had literally drummed up a mate; his
urgent and oft-repeated advertisement was answered. Still the drumming
did not cease, but was quite as fervent as before. If a mate could be
won by drumming, she could be kept and entertained by more drumming;
courtship should not end with marriage. If the bird felt musical
before, of course he felt much more so now. Besides that, the gentle
deities needed propitiating in behalf of the nest and young as well as
in behalf of the mate. After a time a second female came, when there
was war between the two. I did not see them come to blows, but I saw
one female pursuing the other about the place, and giving her no rest
for several days. She was evidently trying to run her out of the
neighborhood. Now and then, she, too, would drum briefly, as if
sending a triumphant message to her mate.
The woodpeckers do not each have a particular dry limb to which they
resort at all times to drum, like the one I have described. The woods
are full of suitable branches, and they drum more or less here and
there as they are in quest of 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.
A friend of mine in a Southern city tells me of a red-headed
woodpecker that drums upon a lightning-rod on his neighbor's house.
Nearly every clear, still morning at certain seasons, he says, this
musical rapping may be heard. "He alternates his tapping with his
stridulous call, and the effect on a cool, autumn-like morning is very
pleasing."
The high-hole appears to drum more promiscuously than does downy. He
utters his long, loud spring call, _whick--whick--whick--whick_, and
then begins to rap with his beak upon his perch before the last note
has reached your ear. I have seen him drum sitting upon the ridge of
the barn. The log-cock, or pileated woodpecker, the largest and
wildest of our Northern species, I have never heard drum. His blows
should wake the echoes.
When the woodpecker is searching for food, or laying siege to some
hidden grub, the sound of his hammer is dead or muffled, and is heard
but a few yards. It is only upon dry, seasoned timber, freed of its
bark, that he beats his reveille to spring and wooes his mate.
Wilson was evidently familiar with this vernal drumming of the
woodpeckers, but quite misinterprets it. Speaking of the red-bellied
species, he says: "It rattles like the rest of the tribe on the dead
limbs, and with such violence as to be heard in still weather more
than half a mile off; and listens to hear the insect it has alarmed."
He listens rather to hear the drum of his rival, or the brief and coy
response of the female; for there are no insects in these dry limbs.
On one occasion I saw downy at his drum when a female flew quickly
through the tree and alighted a few yards beyond him. He paused
instantly, and kept his place apparently without moving a muscle. The
female, I took it, had answered his advertisement. She flitted about
from limb to limb (the female may be known by the absence of the
crimson spot on the back of the head), apparently full of business of
her own, and now and then would drum in a shy, tentative manner. The
male watched her a few moments, and, convinced perhaps that she meant
business, struck up his liveliest tune, then listened for her
response. As it came back timidly but promptly, he left his perch and
sought a nearer acquaintance with the prudent female. Whether or not a
match grew out of this little flirtation I cannot say.
Our smaller woodpeckers are sometimes accused of injuring the apple
and other fruit trees, but the depredator is probably the larger and
rarer yellow-bellied species. One autumn I caught one of these fellows
in the act of sinking long rows of his little wells in the limb of an
apple-tree. There were series of rings of them, one above another,
quite around the stem, some of them the third of an inch across. They
are evidently made to get at the tender, juicy bark, or cambium layer,
next to the hard wood of the tree. The health and vitality of the
branch are so seriously impaired by them that it often dies.
In the following winter the same bird (probably) tapped a maple-tree
in front of my window in fifty-six places; and when the day was sunny,
and the sap oozed out, he spent most of his time there. He knew the
good sap-days, and was on hand promptly for his tipple; cold and
cloudy days he did not appear. He knew which side of the tree to tap,
too, and avoided the sunless northern exposure. When one series of
well-holes failed to supply him, he would sink another, drilling
through the bark with great ease and quickness. Then, when the day was
warm, and the sap ran freely, he would have a regular sugar-maple
debauch, sitting there by his wells hour after hour, and as fast as
they became filled sipping out the sap. This he did in a gentle,
caressing manner that was very suggestive. He made a row of wells near
the foot of the tree, and other rows higher up, and he would hop up
and down the trunk as these became filled. He would hop down the tree
backward with the utmost ease, throwing his tail outward and his head
inward at each hop. When the wells would freeze up or his thirst
become slaked, he would ruffle his feathers, draw himself together,
and sit and doze in the sun on the side of the tree. He passed the
night in a hole in an apple-tree not far off. He was evidently a young
bird, not yet having the plumage of the mature male or female, and yet
he knew which tree to tap and where to tap it. I saw where he had
bored several maples in the vicinity, but no oaks or chestnuts. I
nailed up a fat bone near his sap-works: the downy woodpecker came
there several times a day to dine; the nuthatch came, and even the
snowbird 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 and my favorite came back, but only to survey the ruins
of his castle for a moment and then go away. He lingered about for a
day or two and then disappeared. The big hairy usurper passed a night
in the cavity; but on being hustled out of it the next night by me, he
also left, but not till he had demolished the entrance to a cavity in
a neighboring tree where downy and his mate had reared their brood
that summer, and where I had hoped the female would pass the winter.