The Downy Woodpecker 269 



the better condition of man. But for this ceaseless warfare of 

 the birds, man could not continue to exist. The conflict of 

 good and evil is not within man alone ; in the outer world it is 

 ever apparent. Without the birds, the insect pests of the world 

 would destroy all vegetable life, and this is absolutely essential 

 to man's continued existence. And so it occurs to me that of 

 all living things the birds are man's best friends. 



The woodpecker family is the one that lives upon the boles 

 or bodies of our trees. The wonderful construction of "the 

 woodpecker with its feet, tail, beak and tongue so admirably 

 adapted to catch insects under the bark of trees," was one of 

 the things that greatly interested Charles Darwin during the 

 thirty years that he was gathering the facts and material for 

 that great work, the Origin of Species. If it would interest so 

 great a mind as his, surely then, in it there is matter for us to 

 reflect upon. 



