The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers | Page 7

the door that slammed to and hit him. Probably, if the door held him by his tail or his limb, it would quickly receive the imprint of his teeth.
In reading Bostock on the "Training of Wild Animals," my attention was arrested by the remark that his performing lions and tigers are liable to suffer from "stage fright," like ordinary mortals, but that "once thoroughly accustomed to the stage, they seem to find in it a sort of intoxication well known to a species higher in the order of nature;" and furthermore, that "nearly all trainers assert that animals are affected by the attitude of an audience, that they are stimulated by the applause of an enthusiastic house, and perform indifferently before a cold audience." If all this is not mere fancy, but is really a fact capable of verification, it shows another human trait in animals that one would not expect to find there. Bears seem to show more human nature than most other animals. Bostock says that they evidently love to show off before an audience: "The conceit and good opinion of themselves, which some performing bears have, is absolutely ridiculous." A trainer once trained a young bear to climb a ladder and set free the American flag, and so proud did the bear become of his accomplishment, that whenever any one was looking on he would go through the whole performance by himself, "evidently simply for the pleasure of doing it." Of course there is room for much fancy here on the part of the spectator, but bears are in so many ways--in their play, in their boxing, in their walking--such grotesque parodies of man, that one is induced to accept the trainer's statements as containing a measure of truth.

IV
THE DOWNY WOODPECKER
I
It always gives me a little pleasurable emotion when I see in the autumn woods where the downy woodpecker has just been excavating his winter quarters in a dead limb or tree-trunk. I am walking along a trail or wood-road when I see something like coarse new sawdust scattered on the ground. I know at once what carpenter has been at work in the trees overhead, and I proceed to scrutinize the trunks and branches. Presently I am sure to detect a new round hole about an inch and a half in diameter on the under side of a dead limb, or in a small tree-trunk. This is Downy's cabin, where he expects to spend the winter nights, and a part of the stormy days, too.
When he excavates it in an upright tree-trunk, he usually chooses a spot beneath a limb; the limb forms a sort of rude hood, and prevents the rainwater from running down into it. It is a snug and pretty retreat, and a very safe one, I think. I doubt whether the driving snow ever reaches him, and no predatory owl could hook him out with its claw. Near town or in town the English sparrow would probably drive him out; but in the woods, I think, he is rarely molested, though in one instance I knew him to be dispossessed by a flying squirrel.
On stormy days I have known Downy to return to his chamber in mid-afternoon, and to lie abed there till ten in the morning.
I have no knowledge that any other species of our woodpeckers excavate these winter quarters, but they probably do. The chickadee has too slender a beak for such work, and usually spends the winter nights in natural cavities or in the abandoned holes of Downy.
II
As I am writing here in my study these November days, a downy woodpecker is excavating a chamber in the top of a chestnut post in the vineyard a few yards below me, or rather, he is enlarging a chamber which he or one of his fellows excavated last fall; he is making it ready for his winter quarters. A few days ago I saw him enlarging the entrance and making it a more complete circle. Now he is in the chamber itself working away like a carpenter. I hear his muffled hammering as I approach cautiously on the grass. I make no sound and the hammering continues till I have stood for a moment beside the post, then it suddenly stops and Downy's head appears at the door. He glances at me suspiciously and then hurries away in much excitement.
How did he know there was some one so near? As birds have no sense of smell it must have been by some other means. I return to my study and in about fifteen minutes Downy is back at work. Again I cautiously and silently approach, but he is now more alert, and when I am the width of three grape rows from him he rushes out of his den and lets