16 IN BIRD LAND. 
the swamp, and had wondered how he could hold 
himself with his claws to so meagre a support. It 
was a problem. How much I longed to solve it! 
However, for a long time the bird so completely 
baffled me that I felt like another Tantalus. One 
winter day, however, he happened to be quite near 
the ground as I stood beneath the willows, so that 
I could see just how he accomplished the mysteri- 
ous feat. Imagine my surprise! He did not cling 
to the withes with his c/azws at all, as he clings toa 
tree-trunk or a large bough, but grasped the slender 
perches with his /ee¢, precisely as if they were hands, 
flinging his long toes, like fingers, clear around the 
stems, one foot above the other. In ascending, he 
would go foot over foot; in descending, he would 
simply loosen his hold slightly and slip down. Sir 
Isaac Newton may have made more important dis- 
coveries, but he did not feel prouder or happier 
when he solved the binomial theorem than did I 
when my little avian problem was solved. I am not 
aware that any one else has ever described this 
performance, and am strongly tempted to announce 
it as an original discovery. Yet a certain writer 
once declared, patronizingly, that there are some 
writers — himself excepted, of course — on natural 
history themes who proclaim as original discoveries 
many facts that are perfectly familiar to every tyro 
in science. Spite of the scornful reflection, however, 
it is my modest opinion that there are very few 
observers who have seen a woodpecker ascending a 
willow-withe foot over foot. 
