In spring the drumming of the yellow-bellied sapsucker may usually be easily recognized by the following peculiarities. Four or five taps given in quick succession are followed by a short pause, this being soon succeeded by two short quick taps; then another pause, and two more taps in somewhat less rapid succession than the first; followed by yet another pause, and two additional taps still a little slower. This is sometimes slightly varied with regard to the number of taps; and occasionally also the latter part consists only of single quick taps with an increasing interval toward the last. The difference between the tapping of the sapsucker and of the hairy and the downy woodpecker is described in the life history of the latter bird. Wendell Taber told Mr. Bent that he succeeded in calling up three of these birds by imitating their drumming with a fountain pen on a dead tree; one of them alighted on the tree on which he was drumming. _Nesting._--William Brewster (1876a), writing of the nesting of the sapsucker at Umbagog Lake, Maine, says: They arrive from the South, where they spend the winter, from the middle to the last of April, and, pairing being soon effected, commence at once the excavation of their nests. The trees usually selected are large dead birches, and a decided preference is manifested for the vicinity of water, though some nests occur on high ground in the interior of the woods, but never so abundantly there as along the margin of rivers and lakes. Both sexes work alternately, relieving each other at frequent intervals, the bird not employed usually clinging near the hole and encouraging its toiling mate, by an occasional low cry. With the deepening of the hole arises the necessity for increased labor, as the rapidly accumulating debris must be removed, and the bird now appears at frequent intervals at the entrance, and, dropping its mouthful of chips, returns to its work. A week or more is occupied in the completion of the nest, the time varying considerably with the relative hardness of the wood. A small quantity of the finer chips are left at the bottom to serve as a bed for the eggs. * * * The labor of incubation, like all other duties, is shared equally by the two sexes. * * *