94 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS. 



the poets shut their study doors in his face, draw- 

 ing their arm-chairs up to the hearth while they 

 rail at November. But the wise woodpecker 

 clings to the side of a tree and fluffing his feathers 

 about his toes makes the woods reverberate with 

 his cheery song, for it is a song, and bears an 

 important part in nature's orchestra. Its rhyth- 

 mical rat tap, tap, tap, tap, not only beats time 

 for the chickadees and nuthatches, but is a reveille 

 that sets all the brave winter blood tingling in our 

 veins. 



There the hardy drummer stands beating on 

 the wood with all the enjoyment of a drum major. 

 How handsome he looks with the scarlet cap on 

 the back of his head, and what a fine show the 

 white central stripe makes against the glossy 

 black of his back ! 



Who can say how much he has learned from 

 the wood spirits ? What does he care for rain or 

 blinding storm ? He can never lose his way. No 

 woodsman need tell him how the hemlock branches 

 tip, or how to use a lichen compass. 



Do you say the birds are gone, the leaves have 

 fallen, the bare branches rattle, rains have black- 

 ened the tree trunks ? What does he care ? All 

 this makes him rejoice ! The merry chickadee 

 hears his shrill call above the moaning of the 

 wind and the rattling of the branches, for our 

 alchemist is turning to his lichen workshop. 



The sealed book whose pictures are seen only 



