Habits of Picidae & other eg. Prespina Wounded Chordials 341 Tuesday May 30 Clear and cool. Off after breakfast berth S. taking the Yelah road. Edward Harrington of Salem arrived by stage last night and started out with us this morning. Found the woods perfectly silent and apparently tenacitless as far as birds were concerned, for the cold had quite rendered them silent, but as the sun got up overhead and the day became warmer they began to be heard and seen. Most of the warblers were collected in little companies in the sunny nooks. I took 14 birds the best Picidae Auctius 2 D. Blackburnia 4 & 12, My. Muscites 8 & 9. Harrington got a Picoides the mate I think of the one I killed. Her ovaries contained 4 eggs of large size and the oviduct showed decisively that she had already laid. One egg had passed down nearly to the anus & was of full size but without a shell. I watched her a long time before firing. This woodpecker is by far the most active and energetic of any of the family so far as I have observed. His strokes on the tree trunk, are very powerful and his whole bearing bespeaks vigorous energy. Just on the Yelah road I came upon a 2 Yunce that was building her nest. She worked very brisk collecting large mouthfuls of twigs and arranging them in a hollow among some small firs. She is no distant cant on two feet away from the spot in her quest of materials. While standing here I chanced to look up and directly over my head stretched out on a horizontal branch near it, apparently lay a forewing. It seemed to be enjoying the warmth of the sunbeams. The rest was a wren,