404 BIRD LIFE AT BINGHAM'S MELCOMBE 



ing class of birds to watch. Like the Hamadryads 

 of old, the guardian wood-nymphs who were believed, 

 each of them, to come into existence, to flourish, 

 and to die with the particular tree they guarded, 

 their existence seems to be bound up with trees. 

 Their life is in the woodlands, and on the trees, and 

 nowhere else. It is seldom indeed that they perch 

 on trees ; but they cling to them and they climb them ; 

 they burrow and they nest in them. They seldom 

 touch the ground ; they never condescend to search 

 a commonplace hedgerow. They are found only 

 where trees are abundant ; and they are most 

 abundant, where those trees are old, and knotted, 

 and gnarled, and tempest-riven, and memory-laden, 

 as they are in Savernake and Sherwood forests. 



And how admirably is their structure adapted 

 as is also that of the sloth, and other animals and 

 birds of South America which seldom touch the 

 ground, except by accident to a strictly arboreal 

 life ! Look at their claws, pointing two forward 

 and two backward, and so securing a firm grip of 

 the tree. Look at the stiff feathers of the wood- 

 pecker's tail, pointing downwards and inwards, to 

 serve as an additional support. Look at the narrow 

 and shallow breast-bone, enabling the bird to press 

 its body close against the bole of the tree. Look at 



