134- WANDERINGS IN 



SECOND \Vell may they do so. Were they to follow the 



JOURNEY. . 



example of most of the other birds, and only feed 



in the morning and evening, they would be often 

 on short allowance, for they sometimes have to 

 labour three or four hours at the tree before they 

 get to their food. The sound which the largest 

 kind makes in hammering against the bark of the 

 tree, is so loud, that you would never suppose 

 it to proceed from the efforts of a bird. You 

 would take it to be the woodman, with his 

 axe, trying by a sturdy blow, often repeated, 

 whether the tree were sound or not. There 

 are fourteen species here ; the largest the size 

 of a magpie, the smallest no bigger than the 

 wren. They are all beautiful ; and the greater 

 part of them have their heads ornamented with a 

 fine crest, movable at pleasure. 



It is said, if you once give a dog a bad name, 

 whether innocent or guilty, he never loses it. It 

 sticks close to him wherever he goes. He has 

 many a kick, and many a blow to bear on ac- 

 count of it ; and there is nobody to stand up for 

 him. The woodpecker is little better off. The 

 proprietors of woods, in Europe, have long ac- 

 cused him of injuring their timber, by boring holes 

 in it, and letting in the water, which soon rots it. 

 The colonists in America have the same complaint 

 against him. Had he the power of speech, which 

 Ovid's birds possessed in days of yore, he could 

 soon make a defence. " Mighty lord of the 



