WOODPECKER. 293 



food chiefly by seizing those insects that are upon the 

 bark of trees, or, at all events, those that are seen 

 in the chinks and crannies of the bark ; but the wood- 

 pecker not only quarries the insects out of their holes 

 under the bark, or even under the solid wood of a tree 

 that is decayed internally, but digs a mine there large 

 enough for its own nidification. 



Such however is the case; and it is not a little 

 singular that the love note of the woodpecker should 

 not be a voice, like that of most other birds, but a 

 tapping upon the trunk of a tree. The muscles of the 

 neck of the bird are so constructed, that it can repeat 

 the strokes of its bill with a celerity of which it is 

 difficult to form a notion. They absolutely make one 

 running jar, so that it is impossible to count them. 

 We have often tried with a stop-watch ; but could 

 never ascertain the number for a minute, although we 

 are certain that it must be many hundreds ; and as, 

 from the sound, the space passed over must be at least 

 three inches backwards and as much forwards, at every 

 stroke, which, in the rude estimate that we were able 

 to form (and it was a very rude one) would make the 

 motion of its beak, one of the most rapid of animal 

 motions, nearly two hundred miles in the hour, 

 yet the bird will continue tapping away for some con- 

 siderable time. 



The woodpecker has three different modes of tapping 

 on trees. The one that is heard earliest in the season 

 is the love signal, is made by the one sex, and answered 

 by the other; it is loud and jarring, and has some re- 

 semblance to a laugh. The strokes are not so rapidly 

 repeated as when it is actually at work in boring a tree, 



