228 LABOUK. 



beak. He listens, as the tree resounds, to what it has to say, to 

 what there is within it. The process of auscultation, but recently 

 adopted in medicine, has been the woodpecker's leading act for some 

 thousands of years. He interrogates, sounds, detects by his ear the 

 cavernous voids which the substance of the tree presents. Such an 

 one, sound and vigorous in appearance, which, on account of its 

 gigantic size, has been marked out for the shipwright's axe, the wood- 

 pecker, by his peculiar skill, condemns as worm-eaten, rotten, sure to 

 fail in the most fatal manner possible, to bend in construction, or 

 to spring a leak and so produce a wreck. 



The tree thoroughly tested, the woodpecker selects it for himself, 

 and establishes himself upon it ; there he will exercise his art. The 

 trunk is hollow, therefore rotten, therefore populous ; a tribe of 

 insects inhabits it. You must strike at the gate of the city. The 

 citizens in wild tumult attempt to escape, either through the walls of 

 the city, or below, through the drains. Sentinels should be posted ; 

 but in their default the solitary besieger watches, and from moment 

 to moment looks behind to snap up the passing fugitives, making use, 

 for this purpose, of an extremely long tongue, which he darts to and 

 fro like a miniature serpent. The uncei'tainty of the sport, and the 

 hearty appetite which it stimulates, fill him with passion ; his glance 

 pierces through bark and wood ; he is present amidst the terrors and 

 the counsels of his enemies. Sometimes he descends very suddenly, 

 in alarm lest a secret issue should save the besieged. 



A tree externally sound, but rotten and corrupt within, is a 

 terrible image for the patriot who dreams over the destinies of cities. 

 Rome, at the epoch when the republic begun to totter, feeling itself 

 like to such a tree, trembled one day as a woodpecker alighted on 

 the tribunal in open forum, under the very hand of the praetor. The 

 people were profoundly moved, and revolved the gloomiest thoughts. 

 But the augurs, who had been summoned, arrived : if the bird escaped 

 with impunity, the republic would perish ; if he remained, he threat- 

 ened only him who held the bird in his hand^ — the prsetor. This 

 magistrate, who was ^lius Tubero, killed the bird immediately, 



