176 



AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



RED/HEADED WOODPECKER, 





The woodpecker pecked on the old barn door, 

 Where the farmer had never seen him before; 

 He got out his gun of a very large bore, 

 And the woodpecker never pecked there any more. 



Were I to be transformed into a bird I should prefer to be a wood- 

 pecker. 



One reason is because he lives in a better house than most birds do. 

 His dwelling is dug in the oak so that its walls are quarter sawed when 

 finished; in the e''m he hews with dexterous skill the tough fibres of the 

 interior to the depth of six or eight inches where the bowl is chiseled 

 enough to accommodate his prospective five or six children. 



In the white arm of the sycamore he is satisfied with great hollows 

 in their decaying trunks. In all these places the floor of its home con- 

 sists of a few chips that fall from the surrounding walls; here its spot- 

 less white eggs are laid, and here are reared its little family of ugly 

 babies. Sometimes he selects a hollow in the dead trunk of an apple 

 tree, tne interior which he improves with his chisel; here he makes his 

 summer home. 



Were I to be a woodpecker I would join the tribe of the Redheads 

 for they are among the most beautiful of the tribes — the most saga- 

 cious and war-like, yet gentle and brave at all points of danger for the 

 protection of their home, and offsprmg. His home is in the trunks of 

 the trees. From these wooden castles and cupalos built by Nature's 

 own hand he can look out of the only window which greets the day — in 

 the house that shelters him from storms on all occasions — midst the 

 deafening roar of thunder, and the vivid glare of lightning he can re- 

 pose quietly until the elements have stopped warring — until the gar- 

 ments of black clouds are torn asunder — when the sun can look down 

 with his warm smile and prompt vegetation to make the green earth 

 greener than ever — a paradise below for human beings and birds to 

 dwell. 



From his log cabin in the air he can see this and more too — he can 



