DR. THEODOR NEUMANN. 155 



Nothing more need be said about it ; it gives the com- 

 plete idea of the work and the result. Other platform 

 builders will attract our attention and interest jast as lit- 

 tle, so that we could go on to the following class of our 

 feathered artisans, unless .i few instances are worth men- 

 tioning, which show us that even apparently uninterest- 

 ing things may be attractive from another point of view. 

 Allow me to speak of the two following facts : The rook 

 (Corvus frugilegus) is a very gregarious bird, building in 

 numbers on the boughs of contiguous trees, and having 

 a kind of social compact that often rises to the dignity 

 of a law. For example, the elder rooks will not permit 

 the younger members of the community to build their 

 nests upon an isolated tree at a distance from the gen- 

 eral assemblage, and if they attempt to infringe this 

 regulation, always attack the offending nest in a body 

 and tear it to pieces. 



A singular attachment frequently takes place between 

 the fish-hawk (Pandion halisetus) and the crow blackbird 

 (Quiscalus versicolor). The nest of the former is of very 

 large dimensions, often from three to four feet in breadth 

 and from four to five feet high, composed externally of 

 large sticks, among the interstices of which sometimes 

 three or four pairs of crow black birds will construct 

 their nests while the hawk is sitting or hatching above. 



Now, let us pay a visit in the deep, silent forest to the 

 guild of the carpenters^ which are represented by a most 

 peculiar and charming class of birds, the woodpeckers 

 (Picidffi). The sagacity of these birds in discovering, un- 

 der a sound bark, the decaying limb or the hollow trunk 

 of a tree, and their perseverance in perforating it for the 

 purpose of incubation, are truly surprising. The male and 

 the female alternately relieve and encourage each other by 

 mutual caresses, renewing their labors for several days till 

 the object is attained. On this work they are so extremely 

 intent that they may be heard till a very late hour in the 



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