There is a period when the male is very active in his rushing of the female--I suppose to make sure of his desire, a mate--but this phase of courtship plays no part in the act of copulation, which I have seen enacted early in the morning, a quiet, matter-of-fact performance. The first and last paragraphs of this quotation are taken from Mr. Shelley’s manuscript notes. _Nesting._--The downy woodpecker nests in a cavity that the birds themselves drill in a branch or stub 8 feet (rarely less) to 50 feet (rarely more) above the ground, generally in dead or dying wood, sometimes in a solid branch. The entrance, one and a quarter inches in diameter, is just large enough to admit the bird’s body, and is perfectly circular unless some bits of soft wood chip off. The cavity is roughly gourd-shaped, turning downward and widening soon after penetrating the wood and extends to a depth varying normally from eight to twelve inches. Generally a few chips are left in the bottom of the cavity. Lewis O. Shelley says (MS.) that according to his experience “the female selects the nest site on her winter, or year-round, territory.” He speaks of a female that in the fall “partly dug out a cavity, supposedly for her winter quarters, but the following summer I found a brood of young of this same bird occupying the nest.” Writers are almost unanimously of the opinion that both birds of the pair excavate the nest, but Shelley (MS.) states: “Of a number of nests observed, I have never known the male downy to assist in excavating. He often comes near when the female is working, but this seems to be an understood signal for her to cease work and go off in his company.” A. Dawes DuBois, in a letter to Mr. Bent, describes the behavior of a pair working jointly on a nest in Ithaca, N. Y., about 15 feet up in an old stub. He says: “These birds were working the lower depths. The partners worked alternately. First the female lighted on the stub and disappeared within the cavity. Immediately she thrust out her head, and, with a quick shake, disposed of a billful of chips. She repeated this a number of times. She was throwing out the loose chips from the bottom of the cavity. Soon she began to chisel, remaining inside where we could not see her. After she had been working for five or six minutes, her mate flew to the stub and uttered a chirp, whereupon the female came out and flew away. “The male went in to continue the work by a somewhat different method. He was never entirely lost to view--his tail was always visible--and he backed out of the hole to dispose of the chips. He ruffled his feathers considerably in squirming out backward, as his body was a snug fit in the entrance hole. He threw out a quantity of loose chips in this manner and then began chiseling, his tail meanwhile protruding from the doorway. He worked for 22 minutes; then his mate came back.