In the eyes of those people who like red caps, and red clothes, I may not be as handsome as some other Woodpeckers whose pictures you have seen, but to my eye, the black coat I wear, and the white vest, and square, saffron-yellow cap are just as handsome. The Ivory-billed Woodpeckers, who sent their pictures to BIRDS in the March number, were funny looking creatures, _I_ think, though they were dressed in such gay colors. The feathers sticking out at the back of the heads made them look very comical, just like a boy who had forgotten to comb his hair. Still they were spoken of as "magnificent" birds. Dear, dear, there is no accounting for tastes. Can I beat the drum with my bill, as the four-toed Woodpeckers do? Of course I can. Some time if you little folks are in a school building in the northern part of the United States, near a pine woods among the mountains, a building with a nice tin water-pipe descending from the roof, you may hear me give such a rattling roll on the pipe that any sleepy scholar, or teacher, for that matter, will wake right up. Woodpeckers are not always drumming for worms, let me tell you. Once in awhile we think a little music would be very agreeable, so with our chisel-like bills for drum-sticks we pound away on anything which we think will make a nice noise. [Illustration: AMERICAN THREE-TOED WOODPECKER.] THE ARCTIC THREE-TOED WOODPECKER. ---- A GENERAL similarity of appearance is seen in the members of this family of useful birds, and yet the dissimilarity in plumage is so marked in each species that identification is easy from a picture once seen in BIRDS. This Woodpecker is a resident of the north and is rarely, if ever, seen south of the Great Lakes, although it is recorded that a specimen was seen on a telegraph pole in Chicago a few years ago. The Black-backed Three-toed Woodpecker--the common name of the Arctic--has an extended distribution from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the northern boundary of the United States northward to the Arctic regions. Its favorite haunts are pine woods of mountainous country. In some portions of northern New England it is a rare summer resident. Audubon says that it occurs in northern Massachusetts, and in all portions of Maine covered by tall trees, where it resides. It has been found as far south as northern New York, and it is said to be a not uncommon resident in those parts of Lewis county, New York, which pertain to the Canadian fauna; for it is found both in the Adirondack region and in the coniferous forests in the Tug Hill range. In the vicinity of Lake Tahoe and the summits of the Sierra Nevada it is quite numerous in September at and above six thousand feet. It is common in the mountains of Oregon and is a rare winter visitant to the extreme northern portion of Illinois.