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 shuns 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 

 (Colaptes auratus, SWAINS.). 



" 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 extrac *iis prey,' for he frequently 

 finds in the loose, mouldering ruins of an old stump 

 (the capital of 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 



