Dr. C. Hart Merriam (1879) speaks of the bird thus: “In few species can the date of arrival, in spring, be ascertained with such precision as in the bird now under consideration; for, no sooner are they here, and recovered from the fatigue of their northward journey, than the country fairly resounds with their cries and drumming. * * * Noisy, rollicking fellows, they are always chasing one another among the trees, screaming meanwhile at the top of their voices, and when three or four vociferous males alight on the same tree, as often happens, their boisterous cries are truly astonishing.” William Brewster (1876a) mentions a “peculiar snarling cry” used as an alarm note, and of a pair at the nest he says: Watching once a nest for an hour or two, I remarked that the birds relieved each other in the labors of incubation at intervals averaging about half an hour each. The one that had been absent would alight just below the hole, and, uttering a low _yew-ick, yew-ick_, its mate would appear from within, when, after the interchange of a few notes of endearment, the sitting bird would fly off and the other instantly enter the hole. * * * Both young and old utter most frequently a low snarling cry that bears no very distant resemblance to the _mew_ of the Catbird. The adults have also two other notes--one, already spoken of, when the opposite sexes meet; the other a clear, ringing _cleur_, repeated five or six times in succession, and heard, I think, only in the spring. Of the voice of the sapsucker, Bendire (1895) says: “Its ordinary call note is a whining ‘whäee,’ and it utters a number of other sounds, some of these resembling the calls of the Blue Jay, and others those of the Red-shouldered Hawk. During the mating season, when the sexes are chasing each other, a series of notes like ‘hoih-hoih,’ a number of times repeated, are frequently heard. Although generally disposed to be more or less noisy, while clinging to their food trees they are always silent as far as my observations go.” The note mentioned above does resemble the cry of the blue jay somewhat in form, but the notes of the two birds need never be confused. The sapsucker’s may be as long as the blue jay’s, or the _caw_ of a crow; again it may be given as a very short syllable. The note commonly is not nearly so loud as the blue jay’s and the tone of voice is different; it is a complaining whine rather than a boisterous shout. Another note, a minor note heard only when one is near the bird, is very like the explosive _hit_ of the red-breasted nuthatch--the little conversational note that the nuthatches use as they scramble over the bark, not the nasal _toot_.