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The yellow-bellied sapsucker is, at this time of year, one of our most abundant woodpeckers, and in its life we have an excellent example of that individuality which is ever cropping out in Nature the trial and acceptance of life under new conditions.

"Won't you come over to the miller's woods with us, uncle, and perhaps we can find the Downy's nest hole," said Nat. "Yes, I will come and tell you about the fourth Woodpecker on the way the one called the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. Though very handsome, this is not a bird that you would care to have come in great numbers to your garden or orchard.

When startled by a bird flying over or alighting near him, he sprang back instantly, slipped over behind the fence or post, and hung on by his claws, leaving only his head in sight. He was a true woodpecker in his manners; bowing to strangers who appeared, driving away one of his sapsucker cousins who came about, and keeping up a low cry of "kr-r-r" almost exactly like his parents.

"The ceaseless rap Of the yellow-hammer's tap, Tip-tap, tip-tap, tip-tap-tip. 'Tis the merry pitter-patter Of the yellow-hammer's tap." Whether or not it is mere play is perhaps yet an open question. The drumming of the sapsucker, one of the most common sounds of the woods and lawn, seemed sometimes simply for amusement, but again it appeared exceedingly like a signal.

The individual of whom I speak is, properly, the yellow-bellied woodpecker, though he is more commonly known as the sapsucker, in some places the squealing sapsucker; and I hailed with joy his presence in a certain protected bit of woods, a little paradise for birds and bird lovers, where, if anywhere, he could be studied.

"More than twenty, but you are likely to notice only a few of them. I am sure, however, that you will be good friends with, four kinds before snowfall the Downy Woodpecker that you saw this morning; the beautiful golden-winged Flicker; the gay Red-headed Woodpecker, so glossy blue-black and white; and the mischievous spotted Sapsucker who visits us in autumn.

You will not probably see him before autumn, for he nests northward from Massachusetts; but you can write down his table now, and then be on the watch for him." The Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker Length about eight and a half inches. Upper parts mixed black, while, and dull yellowish; wings and tail black, with much white on both; crown scarlet in the male.

It was during the nest-feeding days that we discovered most of the sapsucker homesteads; for, having many nests nearer our own level to study, we never sought them, and noticed them only when the baby voices attracted our attention. The home that apparently belonged to our bird of the lawn was beautifully placed in a beech-tree heavy with foliage.

It was too late in the season to see the sapsucker in his most frolicsome humor, although occasionally we met in the woods two of them in a lively mood, eagerly discussing in garrulous tones their own private affairs, or chasing each other with droll, taunting cries, some of which resembled the boy's yell, "oy-ee," but others defied description. During courtship, observes Dr.

Strong indeed is the contrast between such a picture and the same bird in the early spring, then full of life and vigour, drawing musical reverberations from some resonant hollow limb. Like other idlers, the sapsucker in its deeds of gluttony and harm brings, if anything, more injury to others than to itself.