106 



HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



fend their nests from the invasions of man ; 

 as he is their most dreaded enemy. But in 

 the depth of those remote and solitary forests, 

 where man is but seldom seen, the little bird 



neck to reach the woodpecker's hole, at the triumphant 

 moment when he thinks the nestlings his own, and 

 strips his arm, launching it down into the cavity, and 

 grasping what he conceives to be the callow young, starts 

 with horror at the sight of a hideous snake, and almost 

 drops from his giddy pinnacle, retreating down the tree 

 with terror and precipitation. Several adventures of 

 this kind have come to my knowledge ; and one of them 

 that was attended with serious consequences, where both 

 snake and boy fell to the ground ; and a broken thigh, 

 and long confinement, cured the adventurer completely 

 of his ambition for robbing woodpeckers' nests." 



Downy Woodpecker. " This is the smallest of our 

 woodpeckers, and so exactly resembles the former (the 



ha!ry woodpecker) in its tints and markings, and in 

 almost every thing except its diminutive size, that I 

 wonder how it passed through the Count de Buffon's 

 hands without being branded as a " spurious race, de- 

 generated by the influence of food, climate, or some un- 

 known cause." But, though it has escaped this infamy, 

 charges of a much mere heinous nature have been 

 brought against it, not only by the writer above men- 

 tioned, but by the whole venerable body of zoologists in 

 Europe, who have treated of its history, viz. that it is 

 almost constantly boring and digging into apple-trees ; 

 and that it is the most destructive of its whole genus to 

 the orchards. The first part of this charge I shall not pre- 

 tend to deny; how far the other is founded in truth will 

 appear in the sequel. Like the two former species, it re- 

 mains with us the whole year. About the middle of May, 

 the male and female look out for a suitable place for the re- 

 ception of their eggs and young. An apple, pear, or cherry 

 tree, often in the near neighbourhood of the farm-house, 

 is generally pitched upon for this purpose. The tree is 

 minutely reconnoitred for several days previous to the 

 operation, and the work is first begun by the male, who 

 cuts out a hole in the solid wood, as circular as if described 

 with a pair of compasses. He is occasionally relieved by 

 the female, both parties working with the most indefatig- 

 able diligence. The direction of the hole, if made in 

 the body of the tree, is generally downwards, by an 

 angle of thirty or forty degrees, for the distance of six or 

 eight inches, and then straight down for ten or twelve 

 more; within roomy, capacious, and as smooth as if po- 

 lished by the cabinet-maker ; but the entrance is judi- 

 ciously left just so large as to admit the bodies of the 

 owners. During this labour, they regularly carry out 

 the chips, often strewing them at a distance to prevent 

 suspicion. This operation sometimes occupies the chief 

 part of a week. Before she begins to lay, the female 

 often visits the place, passes out and in, examines every 



has nothing to apprehend from man. The 

 parent is careless how much the nest is expos- 

 ed to general notice ; satisfied if it be out of 

 the reach of those rapacious creatures that live 



part both of the exterior and interior, with great atten- 

 tion, as every prudent tenant of a new house ought to do, 

 and at length takes complete possession. The eggs are 

 generally six, pure white, and laid on the smooth bottom 

 of the cavity. The male occasionally supplies the female 

 with food while she is sitting ; and about the last week 

 in June the young are perceived making their way up 

 the tree, climbing with considerable dexterity. All this 

 goes on with great regularity where no interruption is 

 met with ; but the house wren, who also builds in the 

 hollow of a tree, but who is neither furnished with the 

 necessary tools nor strength for excavating such an apart- 

 ment for himself, allows the woodpeckers to go on, till 

 he thinks it will answer his purpose, then attacks them 

 with violence, and generally succeeds in driving them 

 off. I saw some weeks ago a striking example of this, 

 where the woodpeckers we are now describing, after 

 commencing in a cherry-tree within a few yards of the 

 house, and having made considerable progress, were 

 turned out by the wren ; the former began again on a 

 pear tree in the garden, fifteen or twenty yards off, 

 whence, after digging out a most complete apartment, 

 and one egg being laid, they were once more assaulted 

 by the same impertinent intruder, and finally forced to 

 abandon the place. 



"The principal characteristics of this little bird are 

 diligence, familiarity, perseverance, and a strength and 

 energy in the head and muscles of the neck, which are 

 truly astonishing. Mounted on the infected branch of 

 an old apple-tree, where insects have lodged their cor- 

 roding and destructive brood in crevices between the 

 bark and wood, he labours sometimes for half an hour 

 incessantly at the same spot, before he has succeeded in 

 dislodging and destroying them. At these times you 

 may walk up pretty close to the tree and even stand im- 

 mediately below it, within five or six feet of the bird, 

 without in the least embarrassing him ; the strokes of 

 his bill are distinctly heard several hundred yards off; 

 and I have known him to be at work for two hours to- 

 gether on the same tree. Buflbn calls this " incessant 

 toil and slavery," their attitude "a painful posture," 

 and their life "a dull and insipid existence;" expres- 

 sions improper, because untrue ; and absurd, because 

 contradictory. The posture is that for which the whole 

 organization of his frame is particularly adapted; and 

 though, to a wren or a humming-bird, the labour would 

 be both toil and slavery, yet to him it is, I am convinced, 

 as pleasant and as amusing, as the sports of the chase 

 to the hunter, or the sucking of flowers to the humming- 

 bird. The eagerness with which he traverses the upper 

 and lower sides of the branches ; the cheerfulness of his 

 cry, and the liveliness of his motions while digging into 

 the tree and dislodging the vermin, justify this belief. 

 He has a single note, or chinch, which, like the former 

 species, he frequently repeats. And when he flies off, 

 or alights on another tree, he utters a rather shriller cry, 

 composed of nearly the same kind of note, quickly reiter- 

 ated. In fall and winter, he associates with the titmouse, 

 creeper, &c. both in their wood and orchard excursions ; 

 and usually leads the van. Of all our woodpeckers, 

 none rid the apple-trees of so many vermin as this, dig- 

 ging off the moss which the negligence of the proprietor 

 had suffered to accumulate, and probing every crevice. 

 In fact, the orchard is his favourite resort in all seasons ; 

 and his industry is unequalled, and almost incessant, 

 which is more than can be said of any other species we 

 have. In fall, he is particularly fond of boring the apple- 

 trees for insects, digging a circular hole through the hark 

 just sufficient to admit his bill, after that a second, third, 



