XI 



THE WOODPECKER'S TOOLS : HIS BILL 



THERE is an old saying, " You may know a 

 carpenter by his chips ; " but, though chips are 

 seldom long absent when a woodpecker is about, 

 can we call the woodpecker a carpenter ? Is he 

 not both in his works and ways of working 

 with the one exception of the Californian wood- 

 pecker more of a miner ? 



For the carpenter takes pieces of wood, bit 

 by bit, and joins them together till at last he 

 has built a lofty skeleton or framework for his 

 dwelling, which last of all he covers over and 

 closes in ; and the tools he uses are saw and 

 hammer. With these alone he could build his 

 house, though it might be neither very large 

 nor very good. When a carpenter's house is 

 finished, it is neither a cave nor a hole, but a 

 pavilion built in the open air after the model 

 of a spreading tree, which frames a roof with 

 its branches and shingles it with overlapping 

 leaves. There is nothing in the woodpecker's 

 way of building which corresponds to that. 



