120 A HISTORY OF 



twenty before one is found fit to give entire satisfaction. Of those 

 which it has made and deserted, other birds, not so good korers, and 

 less delicate in their choice, take possession. The jay and the star- 

 ling lay their eggs in these holes, arid bats are now and then found 

 in peaceable possession. Boys sometimes have thrust in their hands 

 with certain hopes of pjucking out a birds's egg ; but to their great 

 mortification, have had their ringers bitten by a bat at the bottom. 



The woodpecker takes no care to line its nest with feathers or straw y 

 its eggs are deposited in the hole, without any thing to keep them 

 warm except the heat of the parent's body. Their number is gene- 

 rally five, or six ; always white, oblong, and of a middle size. When 

 the young are excluded, and before they leave the nest, they are adorn- 

 ed with a scarlet plumage under the throat, which adds to their 

 beauty. 



In our climate, this bird is contented with such a wainscot habita- 

 tion as has been described for its young ; but in the warmer regions 

 of Guinea and Brazil, they take a very different method to protect 

 and hatch their nascent progeny. A traveller who walks into the fo- 

 rests of those countries, among the first strange objects that excite 

 curiosity, is struck with the multitude of birds' nests hanging at the 

 extremity of almost every branch. Many other kind of birds build in 

 this manner, but the chief of them are of the woodpecker kind ; and 

 indeed, there is not, in the whole history of Nature, a more singular 

 instance of the sagacity of those little animals in protecting themselves 

 against such enemies as they have most occasion to fear. In culti- 

 vated countries, a great part of the caution of the feathered tribe is to 

 hide or defend 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 has nothing 

 to apprehend from man. The parent is careless how much the 

 nest is exposed to general notice, satisfied if it be out of the reach of 

 those rapacious creatures that live by robbery and surprise. If the 

 monkey or the snake can be guarded against, the bird has no othei 

 enemies to fear : for this purpose its nest is built upon the depending 

 points of the most outward branches of a tall tree, such as the ba- 

 nana or the plantain. On one of those immense trees is seen the 

 most various, and the most inimical assemblage of creatures that can 

 be imagined. The top is inhabited by monkeys of some particulai 

 tribe, that drive off all others ; lower down twine about the great trunk 

 numbers of the larger snakes, patiently waiting till some unwary ani- 

 rnal comes within the. sphere of their activity, and at the edges of the 

 tree hang these artificial nests, in great abundance, inhabited by birds 

 of the most delightful plumage. 



The nest is usually formed in this maner : When the time of incu- 

 uation approaches, they fly busily about, in quest of a kind of moss, 

 called by the English inhabitants of those countries old man's beard. 

 It is a fibrous substance, and not very unlike hair, which bears being 

 moulded into any form, and suffers being glued together. This there- 

 fore the little woodpecker, called by the natives of Brazil, the guira, 

 tcmga, first glues by some viscous substance, gathered in the forest, 

 to the extremest branch of a tree ; then building downward, and still 

 adding fresh materials to those already procured, a nest is formed, 



