294 SUMMER. 



but they are more so than when it is trying for the place 

 best adapted for that purpose. In spring, and the 

 early part of summer, the birds have also a cry or 

 whistle, which they utter more loudly and frequently 

 in those softening states of the weather that usually 

 precede rain, than at any other times ; and this, to- 

 gether with the resemblance which the cry itself (pleu-i, 

 pleu-i) has to the Latin pluvii, (of rainy) procured them 

 the name of rain-birds, which they still retain. All 

 birds, however, that feed upon burrowing insects, whether 

 these burrow in the earth or in any thing else, are active 

 at the same times and for the same reason as the wood- 

 pecker. The second mode that the woodpecker has of 

 tapping on trees is by loud strokes repeated rather 

 slowly, and which might be mistaken by one not very 

 familiar with birds, for the strokes of a woodman, just 

 in the same manner as the amorous drumming might 

 pass for the uncouth laugh of " the wild man of the 

 woods ;" and there is little doubt that woods and other 

 places have sometimes derived their mysterious popu- 

 lation from those sounds and cries of animals that bear 

 some resemblance to sounds uttered by man. In tap- 

 ping thus upon the trees, the woodpecker has two ob- 

 jects; the first is to find out what beetles, or larvse, or 

 wood-lice, it may thereby alarm in their retreats in the 

 bark, and drive out. Accordingly, as it hammers 

 away, it is constantly jerking from side to side, and 

 sometimes quite round the trunk or bough, and pro- 

 jecting its tongue with great rapidity against the 

 crevices ; by each of which operations it, in all pro- 

 bability, secures an insect. The tongue is well fitted for 

 that purpose. It is long, cylindrical, can be projected 



