THE GREEN WOOD-PECKER. 217 



fluttered in vain ; many a mother sits hungry over those eggs, 

 the young of which, if they shall be produced at all, must 

 perish of want ; and many a nest is abandoned in despair, 

 and the builders drop down among the arid clods, to seek the 

 preservation of their own lives in that description of food 

 to which they are fain to betake themselves in the rigours of 

 winter. "The famine is" indeed "sore in the land;" and 

 Sahara hangs suspended over the erewhile green pasture and 

 gay grove. 



But on some day, before there is a cloud in which the 

 bow of hope can limn its hues, the white flag of truce and 

 mercy is hung out in the higher heaven, streaming in easy 

 flexures from the south-west, in testimony of victory over 

 the desolating east. And as the day declines, the little clouds 

 flit joyously on varied winds, as if they were fetching the 

 pitchers of heaven from the four corners of the sky, to refresh 

 the weary earth, and renew the waning creatures. The sealed 

 spring trickles out; the echo softens and mellows its tone; 

 and the whole earth is tuned as an instrument by a skilful 

 hand. Then, as the evening closes, the insects and the 

 worms come out ; the birds feed ; new life returns ; the tuned 

 instrument is soon in use ; the groves are in song the live- 

 long night : and that song ceases not even when the thunder 

 peals and the rain pours, until the delivered tribes have 

 expressed their gratitude. Such is another instance of the 

 augury of birds, and a very general one. 



The female of the green wood-pecker has the head much 

 paler, the mustaches black, and the general colour of the 

 body inclining to brown and grey where that of the male is 

 red and yellow. The young are also greyish, spotted on the 

 breast, and have only a few red feathers on the head. 



THE GREAT SPOTTED WOOD-PECKER (PlCUS major). 



The word "major" is not very happily applied to this 



