FAMILY Picidx. 



If tliere is already a hollow in the tree of small size it 

 is enlarged to the required dimensions in a remarkably 

 short space of time, but still the housewife seems to 

 entertain some doubt about matters in general, and 

 wastes more time " poking around" ! Wilson seems to 

 approve of this questionable vigilance and remarks as 

 follows : " Before she begins to lay, the female passes in 

 and out, examines every part, both of the exterior and 

 interior, with great attention, as every prudent tenant 

 of a new house ought to do, and at length takes com- 

 plete possession." 



Such good carpenters as these deserve a better name, 

 but it is ever the case that mankind sums up the charac- 

 ter of the bird in a trivial manner and labels him flip- 

 pantly ! Indeed sometimes we are not above cracking 

 a joke on the label. It is in The Spenders, I believe, 

 that the farmer tells of his economical experiment in 

 feeding his setting hen on sawdust, and finishes with the 

 statement that of the thirteen eggs hatched out, twelve 

 produced chickens with wooden legs and the thirteenth 

 a woodpecker ! Alas for the carpenter-bird, he is not 

 appreciated ; he carves his home in the heart of the 

 apple-tree, smooths its sides with the skill of a cabinet- 

 maker, taps at the door of every insect that lives in the 

 vicinity with a summons as inexorable as that of the 

 Great Destroyer, and drums a rolling tattoo on a resonant 

 limb or a telegraph pole in a master fashion that would 

 " beat the band." 



There is the musicianly part of his character ; he is a 

 member of the drum corps who sounds a reveille for the 

 mere love of it, or, to speak ...ore exactly, "all for the 

 love of the lady." We should make no mistake about 

 this, he is signalling for his mate, and if we stand by 

 long enough it is possible we may see her. This summer 

 I listened to a rousing, rattling tattoo on a telephone 

 pole near my cottage that could have been heard fully a 

 quarter of a mile away, and after its second repetition, I 

 saw two Downies where a moment before there was but 

 one; so she had arrived! What few notes the Downy 

 has may U- compared to the ring of a marble quarrirr's 

 chisel to borrow an apt simile by Mr. Chapman. He 

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