Winter Pensioners 179 may fret audibly, calling the other fellow greedy, for aught I know, and asking him if he wants the earth ; but he maintains a respectful distance. Birds, like wild things in general, have a natural reverence for size and weight. The Chickadees are niuch the most numerous with us, but taking the year together the Woodpeckers are the most constant. My notes record them as present in the middle of October, 1899, and now, in the middle of October, 1900, they are still in daily attendance. Perhaps there were a few weeks of midsummer when they stayed away, but I think not. One pair built a nest somewhere in the neighborhood and depended on us largely for supplies, much to their convenience and our pleasure. As soon as the red-capped young ones were able to fly the parents brought them to the tree and fed them with the suet (it was a wonder how much of it they could eat), till they were old enough to help themselves. And they act, old and young alike, as if they owned the place. If a grocer's wagon happens to stop under the tree they wax DOWNY WOODPECKER Bromide enlargement X 3- indignant, and remain so till it drives away. Even the black cat, Satan, has come to acknowledge their rights in the case, and no longer so much as thinks of them as possible game, I have spoken, I see, as if these three species were all ; but, not to mention the Blue Jays, whose continual visits are rather ineffective!}' frowned upon (they carry off too much at once), we had last winter, for
