SOMK HYOID HINTS, 127 



great chain of wisdom. Art is not the whole of 

 hfe, nor is material progress the only good. 

 The pleasure of knowledge, never embodied 

 in painting, sculpture, or poem, nor applied 

 to any economic purpose, is of itself a mighty 

 factor in the operations of human life. These 

 may be trite sentences, but I fear they yet 

 are not sufficiently axiomatic to shield me 

 wholly when I come to disclose the subject of 

 this paper, to wit: The Tongue of a Wood- 

 pecker. If I should say, the tongue of a night- 

 ingale, instead, or the tongue of a mocking- 

 bird, or even the tongue of a blue-bird, I 

 might hope for a gracious audience, but the 

 tongue of a woodpecker has not been em- 

 balmed in melody by a Shelley, a Keats, a 

 Tennyson, or a Sappho, nor has it been set in 

 romance by the genius of all ages, nor ever 

 has it endeared itself to the popular heart by 

 amorous carols in all the orchards and groves 

 of the land. Still I might make bold to claim 

 for my woodpecker's tongue some pleasing 

 notes heard in the wild woods when the 

 mornings are sweet and still. 



Buffon, giving rein to the Latin hobby of 

 romance, described the woodpecker's life as 

 one of singular and terrible barrenness and 

 misery. Indeed if Buffon, viewed in the 

 light of to-day, may be called an ornitholo- 

 gist, I may as well modify what I said a while 

 ago, and admit that one great bird-student has 

 slandered my subject in a mild way. "Its 

 movements are brusk," says he, "it has a 

 restless air, harsh traits and features, a sav- 

 age and wild disposition, fleeing all society, 

 even of its own kind, and when the stress of 

 passion forces it to seek a mate, it is without 

 any of those graces with which the feeling 

 charges the movements of other beings who 

 experience it with a tender heart." But my 

 observations^ extending throughout some 



