THE PERSONALITY OF TREES 309 



lows of trees. Parrots, kingfishers, swifts, and 

 hummingbirds are almost helpless on the ground, 

 their feet being adapted for climbing about the 

 branches, perching on twigs, or clinging to the 

 hollows of trees. Taken as a whole, birds would 

 suffer more than any other class of creatures in a 

 deforested world. The woodpeckers would be 

 without home, food, and resting-place; except, 

 possibly, the flicker, or high-hole, who is either a 

 retrograde or a genius, whichever we may choose 

 to consider him, and could live well enough upon 

 ground ants. But as to his nest he would have to 

 sharpen his wits still more to solve successfully 

 the question of the woodpecker motto, "What is 

 home without a hollow tree?" 



Great gaps would be made in the ranks of the 

 furry creatures the mammals. Opossums and 

 raccoons would find themselves in an embarrass- 

 ing position, and as for the sloths, which never 

 descend to earth, depending for protection on their 

 resemblance to leaves and mossy bark, they would 

 be wiped out with one fell swoop. The arboreal 

 squirrels might learn to burrow, as so many of 

 their near relations have done, but their muscles 

 would become cramped from inactivity and their 

 eyes would often strain upward for a glimpse of 

 the beloved branches. The bats might take to 

 caves and the vampires to outhouses and dark 

 crevices in the rocks, but most of the monkeys and 



