62 CONVERSATIONS ON 



" What is it that he uses, then ?" 

 " He uses the tool which God gave him. 

 It is a bird, boys, which you hear : it is the 

 woodpecker. See, there it is on yonder tree, 

 and look, at the foot of it, there is something 

 like a bushel of the bird's chips or dust. 

 Its bill is a complete chisel ; it is straight, 

 hard, and sharp, with edges too upon the 

 sides. It is not a very broad chisel, but still it 

 is one, and used as we use ours. But the 

 chisel is not the only instrument of that 

 workman. Its tongue is worth examining. 

 It bores a hole into a tree that is dead or de- 

 caying, to look for insects whose nests are in 

 the tree ; and when it reaches the cell where 

 the young insect is, it uses its tongue to get 

 it out, and it suits exactly for the business. 

 In the first place, it is so long that the bird 

 can shoot it out three or four inches longer 

 than the bill is : in the next place the end of 

 it is tipped with a stiff, sharp, long thorn ; 

 and in the last place, that thorn has little 

 teeth on both sides of it, like that which you 

 see on the point of a fish-hook/ these teeth 

 are to keep the insect from falling off when 

 it puts its tongue in the hole and sticks its 

 sharp point into it to draw it out for food. So 



