THE WOODPECKER AND CREEPER. 233 



trees thou art set down as the cause of their premature 

 decay. Full well I know thy beak, strong as it is, is 

 totally incapable of boring into the sound timber full 

 well do I know that, even if thou wert guilty of such 

 offence, nothing would reward thy labours, for thy prey 

 does not lurk under the bark of a healthy tree. Insects 

 innumerable bore through its bark and hasten its doom, 

 and it is thy duty in Nature's economy to check them 

 in their disastrous progress. Thou art also accused of 

 boring into the sound timber for the purpose of making 

 a cavity for thy eggs and young, yet to do so would be 

 deviating from the course Nature has intended thee to 

 fill. Sincerely do I hope the time is not far distant 

 when the timber owner may welcome thy approaches, 

 and protect thee in his domain, as one of his greatest 

 friends, pointing out by thy actions the state of every tree 

 in his forests, and warning him, by the unmistakable signs 

 of thy visits, that his timber has already passed its prime, 

 and is awaiting the woodman's axe to save it from utter 

 ruin. 



The Woodpecker is for the greater part of the year 

 a decidedly solitary species, seldom more than a pair 

 being seen together. True, we may often see a party of 

 them even in the winter months ; still they have accident- 

 ally met in their wanderings through the woods, and 

 will again separate, each to seek its meal in a contrary 

 direction. In the early summer months the Wood- 

 pecker in company with his mate repairs to his nesting- 

 hole, for it is not at all improbable that these birds are 

 a life-paired species. The hole is ofttimes in a decayed 

 tree, sometimes in a limb, at others in the trunk, not 

 unfrequently in the hole made by the snapping off of a 

 branch. If the Woodpeckers have to make a hole 

 themselves, they set to work in the softest part of a 



