182 HISTORY OF 



and the most inimical assemblage ot creatu<'es that can bo 

 imagined. The top is inhabited by monkeys cf some particular 

 tribe, that drive off all others ; lower down twire about the great 

 trunk numbers of the larger snakes, patiently waiting till some 



large as to admit the bodies of the owners. During- tr.is labour, they regii. 

 larly carry out the chips, often strewii)"- them at a d' stance to prevent sus- 

 picion. This operation sometimes occupies the chiel part of a week. Be. 

 fore she begins to lay, the female often visits the place, passes out and 

 in, examines every part both of the exterior and interior, with great 

 attention, as every prudent tenant of a new house ought to do, and at 

 length takes complete possession. The eggs are generally six, pure white, 

 and laid on the smooth bottom of the cavity. The male occasionally supplies 

 the female with food while she is sitting ; and about the last week in June the 

 young are perceived making their way up the tree, climbing with consider- 

 able dexterity. AH this goes on with great regularity where no interrup. 

 tion is met with ; but the house wren, who also builds in the hollow of a 

 tree, but who is neither furnished with the necessary tools nor strength for 

 excavating such an apartment for himself, allows the woodpeckers to go on, 

 till he thinks it will answer bis purpose, then attacks them with violence, 

 and generally succeeds in driving them off. I saw some weeks ago a strik- 

 ing example of this, where the woodpeckers we are now describing, after 

 commencing in a clierry-tree within a few yards of the house, and having 

 made considerable progress, were turned out by the wren ; the former began 

 again on a pear tree in the garden, fifteen or twenty yards off, whencei 

 after digging out a most complete apartment, and one egg being laid, they 

 were once more assaulted by the same impertinent intruder, and tinally 

 forced to abandon the place. 



" The principal characteristics of this little bird are diligence, familiarity, 

 perseverance, and a strength and energy in the head and muscles of tl>e 

 neck, which are truly astonishing. Mounted on the infected branch of 

 an old apple-tree, where insects have lodged their corroding and destructive 

 brood in crevices between the bark and wood, he labours sometimes for 

 half an hour incessantly at the same spot, before he has succeeded in dis. 

 lodging and destroying them. At these times you may walk np pretty close 

 to the tree, and even stand immediately below it, within five or six feet of 

 the bird, without in the least embarrassing him ; the strokes of his bill are 

 distinctly heard several hundred yards off; and I have known him to be at 

 work for two hours together on the same tree. Buffon calls this " incessant 

 toil and slavery," their attitude " a painful posture," and their life " a dull 

 and insipid existence ;" expressions improper, because untrue ; and absurd, 

 because contradictory. The posture is that for which the whole organi/.a- 

 tion of his frame is particularly adapted ; and though, to a wren or a hum. 

 ming.bird, the labour would be both toil and slavery, yet to him it is, I am 

 convinced, as pleasant and as amusing, as the sports of the chase to the hunter, 

 or the sucking of flowers to the humming-bird. The eagerness with which 

 ha traverses the upper and lower sides of the branches ; the cheerfulness of 

 his cry, and the liveliness of his motions while digging into the tree and 

 dislodging the vermin, justify this belief. He has a single note, or chinck, 

 which, like the former species, he frequently repeats. And when he flies off, m 



