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He has no mate or fellow lodger, though there is room in his cabin for three birds at least. Where the female is I can only conjecture; maybe she is occupying a discarded last year’s lodge, as I notice there are a good many new holes drilled in the trees every fall, though many of the old ones still seem intact.

During the inclement season Downy is anything but chivalrous or even generous. He will not even share with the female the marrow bone or bit of suet that I fasten on the maple in front of my window, but drives her away rudely. Sometimes the hairy woodpecker, a much larger bird, routs Downy out and wrecks his house. Sometimes the English sparrows mob him and dispossess him. In the woods the flying squirrels often turn him out of doors and furnish his chamber cavity to suit themselves.

III

I am always content if I can bring home from my walks the least bit of live natural history, as when, the other day, I saw a red-headed woodpecker having a tilt with a red squirrel on the trunk of a tree.

Doubtless the woodpecker had a nest near by, and had had some experience with this squirrel as a nest-robber. When I first saw them, the bird was chasing the squirrel around the trunk of an oak-tree, his bright colors of black and white and red making his every movement conspicuous. The squirrel avoided him by darting quickly to the other side of the tree.

Then the woodpecker took up his stand on the trunk of a tree a few yards distant, and every time the squirrel ventured timidly around where he could be seen the woodpecker would swoop down at him, making another loop of bright color. The squirrel seemed to enjoy the fun and to tempt the bird to make this ineffectual swoop. Time and again he would poke his head round the tree and draw the fire of his red-headed enemy. Occasionally the bird made it pretty hot for him, and pressed him closely, but he could escape because he had the inside ring, and was so artful a dodger. As often as he showed himself on the woodpecker’s side, the bird would make a vicious pass at him; and there would follow a moment of lively skurrying around the trunk of the old oak; then all would be quiet again.

Finally the squirrel seemed to get tired of the sport, and ran swiftly to the top and off through the branches into the neighboring trees. As this was probably all the woodpecker was fighting for, he did not give chase.