The array of traps prepared for the woodpecker's use was most curious, and readily explained how he came by his name. The clever little workman had selected for his purpose two trees. One was a large elm, and around its trunk, about fifteen feet from the ground, he had laboriously cut with his sharp beak several rings of cups. These receptacles were somewhat less than half an inch in diameter, and nearly their own width apart, and the rings encircled the trunk as regularly as though laid out with mechanical instruments. His second depot of supplies was one of a close group of mountain ashes, which seemed to spring from one root, and were thickly shaded by leaves to the ground. The elm would naturally attract the high-flying insects, and the ash those which stay nearer the earth, though I do not presume to say that was the bird's intention in so arranging them. The mountain-ash trunk was perforated in a different way from the elm, the holes being in lines up and down, and the whole trunk covered five or six feet above the root. These places were not at all moist or sticky on the several occasions when I examined them, and both trees were in a flourishing condition. The habit of the author of this elaborate arrangement was to fly from one tree to the other almost constantly. It appeared to lookers-on that he visited the traps on one and secured whatever was caught or lingered there, then went to the other for the same purpose; thus allowing insects a chance to settle on each while he was absent. At almost any hour of the day he could be found vigorously carrying on his insect hunt in this singular fashion. It was too late in the season to see the sapsucker in his most frolicsome humor, although occasionally we met in the woods two of them in a lively mood, eagerly discussing in garrulous tones their own private affairs, or chasing each other with droll, taunting cries, some of which resembled the boy's yell, "oy-ee," but others defied description. During courtship, observes Dr. Merriam, they are inexpressibly comical, with queer rollicking ways and eccentric pranks, making the woods ring with their extraordinary voices. At this time, early in June, the season of woodpecker wooing was past. Each little couple had built a castle in the air, and set up a household of its own, somewhere in the woods surrounding the house.