He knew which side of the tree to tap, too,
and avoided the sunless northern exposure. When one series of
well-holes failed to supply him, he would sink another, drilling
through the bark with great ease and quickness. Then, when the day was
warm, and the sap ran freely, he would have a regular sugar-maple
debauch, sitting there by his wells hour after hour, and as fast as
they became filled sipping out the sap. This he did in a gentle,
caressing manner that was very suggestive. He made a row of wells near
the foot of the tree, and other rows higher up, and he would hop up and
down the trunk as these became filled. He would hop down the tree
backward with the utmost ease, throwing his tail outward and his head
inward at each hop. When the wells would freeze or his thirst become
slaked, he would ruffle his feathers, draw himself together, and sit
and doze in the sun on the side of the tree. He passed the night in a
hole in an apple-tree not far off. He was evidently a young bird not
yet having the plumage of the mature male or female, and yet he knew
which tree to tap and where to tap it.
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