IN SEARCH OF A MATE. 



69 



WOODPECKERS. 



tests the licliened trunk until he 

 comes to a hollow place, where he 

 straightway beats as on a drum, in 

 a succession of loud rolling taps, a 

 kind of "rataplan." Though rude 

 the instrument, the bird elicits from 

 it a music which is not to be despised. 

 The sound swells and sinks, and 

 sinks and swells again, now faster 

 and now slower, till, at a distance, it 

 echoes like the murmur of a festal 

 song : and if the woodpecker's mate 

 hears it, she straightway replies ; and 

 then their troth is plighted, and the labour of the season 

 begun. Otherwise, the male glides on to another tree, 

 uttering his quick cry of ^j^it-?*, ;9^?«-?*, and resumes his 

 serenade : and should there chance to be in the wood more 



