The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-09-18


| nourlshment. Ask your grocer for Grain
~ the new food drink. 10 and 25c
when he flies near the ground. as he
often does you can plainly see the pure
White of his rump. He wears a scarlet
| crescent on his nape, and carries black
shield, also crescent-shaped, upon his
chest, like knight, The greater part
of his body, which is brownish above
and Wine-colored below, is beautifully
notified with black. The males must be
IN fashion with their human relatives,
and so they cultivate mustache, which
| is as black as coal. The flicker is a
handsome bird, and his manners are
droll If not always delightful.
He is called a high-hole, because he
often hews out a nest far up in tree;
but he does not always choose so eleva-
ted place, In my boyhood days a pair
of flickers had nest in an old apple
tree, where we could reach it from be-
low, and last summer L found a nest
| that was not more than 10 feet from
the ground.
You will be pleased with the loud,
clarion call of these birds in the spring,
as 1t echoes across the meadows or
| through tn woodlands. 1t seems to be
the bugle note that calls the forces Of
nature into life, and one can almost see
the grass springing and the buds I'M
| folding at the sound. No wonder it has
been termed his wake-up call / doubt
very much if spring would ever come
at all if golden-wing did not sound his
bugle.
And then what a wealth of love and
tenderness, there is in his "chuck-up,
chuck-up" during the season of court
ship wick "a wick" or "quit-tu!"
wonder whether you have ever seen two
of these birds on limb bowling to each
other, bobbing their heads from side to
side to avoid coming in contact, and all
the while repeating "chuck-ah, chuck
all" quite rapidly? 1t is queer per
Torrance, and is doubtless INDUCED in
for pure love of fun.
In one respect the golden wing departs
from the fashion of his kinsmen. While
the red-heads often tilt in the air in
quest of insects, and while the downy,
hairy, red belied and yellow bellied
woodpeckers keep close to the boles Of
the trees, the flicker spends much of
his time on the ground with the robins
and crow blackbirds. l have seen him
thrust his bill into the ground up to the
hilt, as one might say, in search of ants,
of which he is very fond. Some writer's
think he Is losing his woodpecker ways
on account of this habit. One observer
declares that the flicker has ceas7d to
be a woodpecker," because he saw him
running over the closely cropped mead
ow My own opinion Is that he has al
ways done as he does at the present
time, finding his food mostly on the
ground and yet drilling his nursery
in the trunks and branches of trees.
have seen no evidence that he has
ever done otherwise He does as he does
because ut his nature to-" or, in other
words becaues he has been built that
way" He will not cease to be wood
pecker until he ceases to peck cavities
in tree trunks. There are at present
no signs of his giving up that occupa
ton
Like other woodpeckers, he seems to
look upon every dead branch or partly
loosened piece of bark as drum
head upon which to beat his tattoo.
Bradford Torrey, in his pleasant way,
tells of two of these birds that drummed
dialog upon a shell-bark tree, which,
he says Is "a tree after the woodpeck-
ers own heart" They were about Is
feet apart, one above the other. First,
the lower one beat his music out rather
softly Then, as he ceased, and held his
head back listen, the other answered
him; and so the dialog went on" AS it
was Sunday, he thinks probably the
birds were engaged in religious service,
The course of life does not always
run smoothly with jewellers in the air.
Every bird, it seems, must have its
pest. The golden wing, although dis
posed to dwell peaceably with his neigh
bors, finds the bane of his life in the
red -heads. They will sometimes hector
him by drilling a hole below that of the
flicker right into his nest, so that the
eggs or young birds will roll out. |
have seen him leap to his hole in an
apple tree and peep out with a puzzled
air at the red-head pecking on the out
side, not knowing what plan to pursue
to ball his tormentor in his wicked de-
signs. Sometimes, however, golden
wing becomes desperate, and rushes up
on his enemy with blind fury,
A 1fle0O OIL mime saw IL lllChe1 anu Il |
red head clinch in the air, and then |
fall to the ground, where they tusseled !
for some minutes in fierce combat. |
Going closer my friend saw that the
flicker had got his foe by the leg with |
his strong mandibles, and was holding
him like wise, in spite of the red heads |
frantic struggles and outcries. At last
my informant ran up and chased the
birds apart, or the upshot might have
been quite serious, A. contest between
such birds, with their long spearlike !,
bills, would be almost as terrible as
fight between two men with pickaxes.
While our bird has many commend
able traits of character, | have heard of
,ne flicker whose example young people
ought not to initiate. An old lady, who
S a very close observer of birds and in
;ects, she told me the story. She was sit
n a friends yard in the country, one
summer day when a yellow-hammer
lew to a tree, chung to the trunk few
moments with is mouth open, quivered,