CHAPTER II 



CARPENTER BIRDS 



WOODPECKERS are so bright in plumage, so alike 

 in their habits, and so thoroughly masters of their 

 own peculiar way of making a living, in which they 

 do not interfere with man, bird, or beast, that 

 wherever they are numerous they attract, and deserve, 

 a greater share of interest than falls to many other 

 classes of bird. 



The Romans apparently looked on the woodpecker 

 as the first inventor of spirit-rapping, and identified 

 it with a remarkably old-fashioned god who had the 

 gift of rustic prophecy. When they wanted to pay 

 the god a compliment they set up a pillar with a 

 woodpecker on the top. Later they set up his 

 statue with the bird carved sitting on his head. The 

 Spaniards, both in the Old and New World, called 

 the woodpecker the carpintero, to which his feats in 

 drilling holes in wood fully entitle him, even more 

 than does the sound of his hammer tapping on the 

 trees. 



Yet M. de Buffon in one of his flights of fancy 

 chose to identify the position of the carpinteros in the 

 community of the air with that of the French peasants 

 on the great estates. He described them as con- 



