CARPENTERS IN FEATHERS 157 



drumming a love song, or chiselling out a home in some 

 partly decayed tree. How cheerfully his vigorous taps 

 resound! Hammer, chisel, pick, drill, and drum — all 

 these instruments in one stout bill — and a flexible barbed 

 spear for a tongue that may be run out far beyond his bill, 

 like the humming-bird's, make the woodpecker the best- 

 equipped workman in the woods. AU the other birds 

 that pick insect eggs, grubs, beetles, and spiders from the 

 bark could go all over a tree and feast, and the wood- 

 pecker might follow them and still find plenty left, 

 borers especially, hidden so deep that only his sticky, 

 barbed tongue could drag them out. 



When his body is flattened against the tree's side you 

 wonder why he doesn't fall oflf. For the same reason that 

 the swifts, that sleep against the inside walls of chimneys, 

 do not fall down to the hearths below. Like them and the 

 bobolink, woodpeckers prop themselves by their out- 

 spread, stiffened tails. Moreover, they have their toes 

 arranged in a curious way — two in front and two behind, 

 so that they can hold on to a section of bark very much as 

 an iceman holds a piece of ice between his tongs. Smooth 

 bark conceals no larvae nor does it offer a foothold, which 

 is why you are likely to see woodpeckers only on the trunks 

 or the larger limbs of trees where old, scaly bark grows. 



The Flicker 



Length — 12 to 13 inches. About one fourth as large again 

 as the robin. 



Male and Female — Top of head and neck bluish gray, with 

 a red crescent across back of neck and a black crescent 

 on breast. Male has black cheek-patches that are 



