Perhaps a downy woodpecker does not really work any harder or faster for its food than any other bird, but somehow it seems that it does. I found one once on an inclined limb of a catalpa near the Highland Pines Inn and watched it work up ten feet in thirteen minutes. During that time downy’s blows fell good and hard at the average of a hundred strokes each minute except for a dozen momentary stops when a big bird flew over, or the downy scratched its head. It was feeding on small white grubs which it secured at an average rate of four per minute. * * * These woodpeckers have the habit in the Sandhills of digging holes in which to sleep. One found a suitable place in the end of a dead limb of a large gum standing in a flooded swamp near Mid Pines Club. This limb had been broken and left a stub sticking out about five feet long at right angles to the trunk of the gum and about forty feet above the ground. It was about five inches in diameter where the woodpecker began work on it. Work was started on the under side of the limb about nine inches from the outer end on February 11, 1927, and the bird dug at it for forty-five minutes to such good purpose that the hole would then admit all its bill and half its head. As it worked it clung head down under the limb. Then it left its work to go foraging but came back in thirty minutes to resume work. During the next three days this woodpecker must have worked steadily for it then had a hole into which it could completely disappear. But the hole was not large enough nor deep enough, and the bird was still at work, continually popping in and out (backward) of its hole; usually when it backed out it carried a bill full of chips and shavings that it threw over its shoulder. As it did so, it glanced once or twice to either side as if to assure itself that all was well. Then back into the hole for another period of steady hammering. Apparently this woodpecker worked thus from thirty minutes to an hour after each half hour’s foraging trip. Two more days of work completed the sleeping quarters in a snug cozy retreat. When finished, the hole was six inches deep, and the limb around it was a mere shell. The opening being beneath the limb, it was sheltered from storms, and from any water running into it. DISTRIBUTION _Range._--North America; nonmigratory.