48 THE ARCHITECTURE OF BIRDS. 
employ their courage or address, and either shoot 
on rapid wing, or lurk in close ambush, the wood- 
pecker is constrained to drag out an insipid exist- 
ence, in boring the bark and hard fibres of trees to 
extract its humble prey. Necessity never suffers 
any intermission of its labours, never grants an in- 
terval of sound repose: often during the night it 
sleeps in the same painful posture as in the fatigues 
of the day. It never shares the cheerful sports of 
the other inhabitants of the air; it joins not their 
vocal concerts; and its wild and saddening tones, 
while they disturb the silence of the forest, express 
constraint and effort. Its movements are quick ; 
its gestures full of inquietude; its looks coarse and 
vulgar; it shuus society, even that of its own kind. 
Such is the narrow and gross instinct suited to a 
mean and a gloomy life.” 
It would be difficult to conjecture what train of 
thinking led the French naturalist to so singular a 
conclusion. He might, with equal plausibility, have 
given a similar account of any other animal whose 
life is spent in active exertion. We turn with pleas- 
ure to the enthusiastic defence of the bird, by Wil- 
son, in his account of the gold-winged woodpecker 
(Colapies auratus, Swatns.). 
“The abject and degraded character,” says he, 
‘which the Count de Buffon, with equal eloquence 
and absurdity, has drawn of the whole tribe of wood- 
peckers, belongs not to the elegant and sprightly 
bird now before us. He is not‘ constrained to drag 
out an insipid existence in boring the bark and hard 
fibres of trees to extract his prey,’ for he frequently 
finds in the loose, mouldering ruins of an old stump 
(the capital uf a nation of pismires) more than is 
sufficient for the wants of a whole week. He can- 
not be said to ‘lead a mean and gloomy life, without 
an intermission of labour,’ who usually feasts by the 
first peep of dawn, and spends the early and sweet- 
est hours of morning on the highest peaks of the 
tallest trees, calling on his mate or companions, or 
