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Even if there be present no robin, vociferous guardian of the peace, a meek and gentle flicker mounts the highest tree and cries "pe-auk! pe-auk!" as loud as he can shout, a squirrel on one side shrieks at the top of his voice, veeries call anxiously here and there, while a vireo warbles continuously overhead, and a redstart "trills his twittering horn."
I heard them call nearly every day in loud, strong voice, "Pe-auk! pe-auk!" Being thus baffled in my plan of following them home, I resolved upon a regular search in the small piece of woods where they always disappeared, and every morning I spent two or three hours in that lovely spot looking for any birds, but especially for the Golden-wing.
I thought there must be trouble brewing, especially as mingled with it was an occasional excited "pe-auk!" of a flicker. When I reached the spot, I found a curious party, consisting of two doves and three flickers, assembled on one small tree, with the woodpecker on an upper branch, as though addressing his remarks to them.
All this time I had been conscious of low Golden-wing talk about me; the familiar "wick-up! wick-up!" almost in a whisper, a softened "pe-auk!" from the ravine, and the more distant "laugh," so called. The infant on the tree heard too.
On the third day, too, he uttered his first genuine woodpecker cry of "pe-auk!" He had not the least embarrassment before me. I think he regarded me as a part of the landscape, the eccentric development of a tree trunk, perhaps; for while he never looked at me nor put the smallest restraint upon his infant passions, let another person come into the wood, and he was at once silent and on his guard.
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