BIRD TRAITS. 213 



noise to have a hand in the quarrel. His cob- 

 bling is effective. The second summer after his 

 tapping and girdling of a canoe birch, from 

 which he and his associates have drawn the sap, 

 is usually marked by the unmistakable failure 

 of the tree's vitality. 



All the woodpeckers are artisans. They love 

 the resonant tones of the trunks they tap or 

 hammer, as the smith loves the ring of his anvil 

 and the cooper the song of his hoops and staves. 

 The largest among them is most like the black- 

 smith. He is the logcock of the great northern 

 forests. Black and strong, with a big voice and 

 a temper, his eyes flash and his blows echo 

 and cause ruin where they fall. He suggests an 

 older age than this of steam sawmills and wast- 

 ing forests " protected " against Canadian lum- 

 ber. Just so the blacksmith seems a survivor 

 of the age before machinery, when individual 

 men made individual things, and division of 

 labor and machines with replaceable parts were 

 unknown. 



Among the other artisan birds are the brown 

 creepers, perpetually winding imaginary spirals 

 round the trunks of the hemlocks ; the nut- 

 hatches, titmice, and wrens. Fortunately for the 

 trees, these little workers know nothing of strikes 

 or lockouts. If the first tenor ever goes in 

 search of bright eyes among the artisan's daugh- 



