i 4 ANIMAL ARTISANS 



like a flute, with a series of holes begun or completed ; 

 for the bird will often dig in a few inches, and then 

 abandon the work. 



The wrynecks belong to a class of carpenter birds 

 which have no spines in their tails, and instead of the 

 strong and bright coloration of the woodpeckers and 

 barbets, have feathers which imitate the colour of 

 the bark more closely than do those of any other 

 British bird, except perhaps the mimicry of dead 

 sticks and leaves in the plumage of the nightjar. 

 The resemblance is as close as that between the bark- 

 haunting moths and their favourite resting-place, so 

 much so that wrynecks are practically invisible except 

 while on the ground, when, like the woodpeckers, 

 they feed on ants, and in the same way. Their 

 choice of a nest is often in a pollard willow, dead, or 

 partly dead, and of which portions are in a condition 

 like that of touchwood. Into this they burrow, 

 though their bills are far weaker than those of the 

 woodpecker proper, and can only deal with soft 

 material. 



In California there is a woodpecker nearly two feet 

 long ; but the most remarkable species of the United 

 States is the ivory-billed woodpecker, found in con- 

 siderable numbers in the forests of the Lower Missis- 

 sippi. Piles of bark, some of the pieces eight inches 

 square, may be found under the decayed trees on 

 which it is, or has been, busy at work. "We used 

 to see enormous pine-trees," says Wilson, " with 

 cartloads of bark lying around their roots, and chips 

 of the trunk itself in such quantities as to suggest 



